


Intoxicated (On You)

by AngelicMissPretty



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Age Difference, Complete, High School AU, Implied/Referenced Underage Drug Use, M/M, Making Out, Partying, Phone Calls, Sexting, Texting, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-04-29 05:08:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5116712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelicMissPretty/pseuds/AngelicMissPretty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(AKA the fic that started out as a Halloween one-shot and descended into full-on high school AU drama)</p><p>Rhys hated parties. They were obnoxiously loud and unsettling - besides, Pandora High seniors on alcohol seemed to always spell disaster. Rhys would much rather spend his time curled up in bed, and yet, on Halloween night, fate decided to throw him a distraction to one such horrendous party in the form of a tall, dark, handsome stranger named Jack.</p><p>Fate doesn’t stay on his side for very long, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE! I freaking LOVE Halloween :3
> 
> also, I'm thinking of turning this fic into a multi-chaptered one, because I have a couple of ideas as to where it could go... Screw it. We're going multi-chapter.

If you were a senior at Pandora Academy, it was mandatory that, on Saturdays, you got wasted. It was simply an accepted tradition that somebody would host a party, or strike a deal with a club, or break into _somewhere_ , and everyone would attend, get high, plastered, and (if you were lucky) bang someone hot. For Rhys – with friends like August and Sasha, who seemed to _live_ off of substances with a high alcohol content – he was forced to abide by this tradition even if he didn’t want to. _God forbid_ it was ever anyone’s birthday; because then the parties were even _louder, bigger, brighter._ They did it big on Christmas, too, and Valentine’s Day seemed to be a good excuse to hook up with someone.

But, hey, he wasn’t complaining; especially on nights where nobody ended up in the ER. Those were _good_ nights. Then again, the night August got dared to jump into a _kiddie pool_ from a two-story window was a good night.

Not a good night for August, but a good night on the whole.

By now – halfway into his senior year – Rhys was used to hearing a knock on his window in the late evening. He’d open his curtains to find Fiona waiting on his garage roof, and she’d help him sneak out of his bedroom undetected; then, the two of them would hop into the back alley behind Rhys’ house to find August in his old pickup truck with Sasha and Vaughn in tow, and they’d drive off to wherever this week’s venue was.

Rhys would get back in the early hours of the morning, and he’d blame his grumpy, hungover tiredness on his _teenage biology_ , which his parents mindlessly accepted, because they’d never take their smart little boy to be the partying _type_. Then again, neither would Vaughn’s parents.

However, this Saturday was special.

_This Saturday was Halloween._

And, really, Rhys was excited. Fiona had caught word that some student – Angel, Fiona thought her name was – at school was planning a _huge_ party, and that there’d be a _lot_ of alcohol. The five friends had spent the majority of their Saturday planning their costumes (if you could describe ‘planning’ as ripping up old clothes and throwing buckets of fake blood at each other) – which, Rhys had to say, looked _amazing_. They’d decided to go as zombies; “ _classic, but cost effective_ ”, as Vaughn had put it.

Besides, they had to dress up as _something._ It was _Halloween_.

That, and a costume was the cost of admission.

The five friends had piled into August’s van as they always did, fighting over the radio and the AC’s temperature, trying desperately to work their way through the intricate estate where their GPS told them the rich kid’s house was located.

When they finally arrived, the house – no, _mansion_ – was absolutely packed to the brim with screaming, intoxicated teenagers. Blaring music was pouring through every window of the manor, and fluorescent, neon lights were shining into the dark evening sky. It didn’t look like a _house party_ , it was more of a _concert hall_. People were shouting and singing along drunkenly to some undiscernible Halloween song and there were already a _lot_ of empty bottles and cans on the sidewalk; and there didn’t seem to be any sort of system of getting in or out of the party. The large, cobbled drive was packed with abandoned vehicles, all looking very out-of-place next to the expensiveness of the regal manor-house. There were toilet paper rolls _everywhere_.

As August pulled the van up to a space on the opposite side of the road and the five of them clambered out, taking in the _crazy bloodbath_ in front of them, Rhys seriously considered if he _really_ wanted to go into that party.

Honestly, a warm bath, a mug of hot chocolate and a movie sounded just a _little_ more tempting than passing out on some stranger’s yard and a self-induced hangover of the century tomorrow.

Of course, his friends had other plans.

“Jesus Christ, look at the state of this.” August said, crossing his arms as he led the group over to the house, stepping over a pile of glass bottles as he swerved through the sea of parked cars. “We all ready to get drunk off our asses?”

“I know I am!” Sasha screamed, bounding up to the mansion’s half-open door and kicking it open, shouting and pointing at the people who greeted her.

“How do we even get _through_ all these kids to the booze?” Fiona said out-loud, addressing the whole group as they bundled into a tight corner in the doorway.

They always did this. _‘Action Plan’_ , as August called it – though Rhys never knew why it was necessary, they never stuck to it anyway.

“I say we split up, find as much as we can, and meet back up in…” Vaughn said loudly over the music, drifting off to crane his head around and look through the arched doorways, “that room. We might be able to push someone off a couch.”

“Sounds good. Then, we drink, and we dance. Maybe we should steal something expensive!” Sasha whispered excitedly, and Fiona started smirking at her.

“No,” Rhys said, trying his best to stop the group from ending up at the police station by the end of the night, “no, we are _not_ stealing anything from this very valuable, probably _very secure_ house.”

“Buzzkill.” Sasha shook her head, hands on her hips, and Fiona rolled her eyes.

“Well, you know he’s going to change his mind by the time he’s wasted,” Vaughn commented, adjusting his glasses, “he’ll probably talk us into stealing a chandelier.”

“What I do under the influence of alcohol is not my fault.” Rhys argued, peeling a bit of itchy fake blood from his neck, shooting defensive looks at his friends as they eyed him incredulously. “Seriously!”

“Whatever you say, sweet-cheeks.” August offered, intent on moving the party along. “We should get moving. Find drinks, bring ‘em over there, we’ll get wasted, and then we’ll see if we wake up somewhere we recognise in the morning. Everyone understand?”

“Got it! You guys scout to the left, we’ll take the right.” Sasha beamed, grabbing Vaughn and Fiona’s hands and dragging them, shoving past people angrily when they dared to get in her way. Rhys let out a loud exhale, audible over the blaring music, feeling hot and sticky. It was an uncomfortable situation – Rhys had never been in a party _this huge_ before.

August looked at Rhys knowingly.

“Eh, you’ll wanna be here when you’ve got some alcohol in ya.”

“You know me so well.” Rhys offered jokingly as they made their way over to a new room, tiptoeing around to look over peoples’ heads for signs of unopened drinks.

There was a case of… something on a table to the back of the room, and a large bottle of half-drunken cocktail. August made his way through the crowds much like Sasha did – barging through unapologetically – and Rhys followed him closely until they got to the table.

August threw Rhys the bottle, a brand which Rhys thankfully recognised as one of the nicer-tasting ones, before searching around in the case to bring out a beer. He opened it, chugging it down happily then scrunching up the can to throw it onto the floor.

“What’cha waiting for, Rhys? Bottle’s not gonna drink itself. C’mon,” the blond said, another can quickly replacing the first, “you’ll feel better for it.”

Rhys looked at the bottle, screwing it open and admiring the fruity scent that permeated the air.

’ _Oh, screw it.’_ Rhys thought to himself, bringing the cocktail up to his lips and tipping his head back.

…

Everything was bright and loud and _exciting_. Rhys’ blood was pumping quickly, elatedly, as he shouted in conversation at some of his equally-drunk classmates, slurring his words and finding everything _funny_. He was sipping on a drink eagerly – though he wasn’t exactly sure _where_ this drink had come from – and the music was a welcome loudness; it made everything more _fun_. The bright lights were still dancing across the walls and through the windows of a room that Rhys wasn’t _quite sure_ how he’d ended up in, but all he knew was that he was _laughing_ , and there was a wonderful, fuzzy warmness enveloping his mind.

Of course, Rhys would describe his current state as _tipsy_. Every other person in the room would describe his current state as _smashed_ , but that was beside the point.

It was a shame he’d lost August.

“Oh my God,” Rhys slurred, taking a step forward and grabbing onto the blue-haired girl – Maya, was it? – from his English class, “I _love_ your hat.”

Rhys wasn’t even sure if this girl was wearing a hat.

“Oh my God,” she repeated, equally as slurred, gripping onto Rhys’ hands to steady herself as well, “ _you_ are _lovely_. You know what?” She asked, leaning in to Rhys so he could hear her.

“What?” He asked, suddenly incredibly interested in what the girl was about to tell him.

“You. Would _love_. Axton.”

Axton? That name sounded familiar; was he a jock? He remembered that name being chanted during the rare times his friends had decided to go to a football game. Maybe it just sounded familiar because Rhys was out of his mind by this point, and _everything_ sounded familiar. Wait, Maya was a _cheerleader,_ wasn’t she? Or _something_ like that. Of course she’d know _Axton_.

“Axton! Axton!” She stared calling mindlessly around the room, stumbling about with her hands still connected to Rhys, until finally, the pair came across a tall, broad man who was holding a beer and chatting to (who Rhys assumed to be) the rest of the football team.

“There you are!” She said, smiling, bounding up to him, “I’ve been looking _everywhere_ for you. _This_ ,” she says, pulling Rhys into Axton’s line of sight and nearly shoving them together, “is…”

“Rhys.” Rhys said, looking up at the man in front of him, who smiled down at Rhys and offered a hand out to him, which Rhys accepted. God, he was already blushing. He’d have to thank the cheerleader girl for introducing them later.

Okay, so Axton was ticking a lot of Rhys’ boxes. Or at least, he was ticking a lot of _drunk_ Rhys’ boxes.

Axton was muscular and well-built, and he had _great_ hair. He was pretty hunky and _powerful_ looking, but there was a nice gentleness to him that made him far more approachable than any stereotypical jock should be. The way he was smirking at Rhys made him melt a little, and when he touched Rhys’ hand to shake it, Rhys inebriated mind thought of far dirtier things that the man towering over him could be doing with his hands.

“What’s happening, cutie? You enjoying the party or what?” Axton asked him, not letting go of his hand even after the shake had finished, leaving Maya to trundle over to entertain the rest of the jocks.

“Totally,” Rhys agreed, staring forwards dreamily, “what ‘bout you?”

“I’m liking it a lot more now, _Rhys_.”

The suggestiveness in Axton’s tone was _very_ clear, and the nice taste in Rhys’ mouth was gone, replaced with something bitter. He couldn’t _blame_ the jock for flirting with him – for God’s sake, it was a party, and Rhys wasn’t rebuffing him at all – but he suddenly _didn’t want it_.

It felt a lot like it did at the start of the party. The music was too loud; the lights were too bright; the people were too obnoxious. How many hours had Rhys _been_ at this party? How many _drinks_ were in him?

God, this he was _stupid_. He had school on Monday.

Rhys spluttered in distress a little as Axton pulled him in closer with a tug of force, their hips touching. Rhys could feel the other man against him, and suddenly, in the fog of Rhys’ drunken mind, a huge red flag popped up.

“Say, you wanna…”

“ _Ah_ , no thank you!” Rhys said, wiggling out of Axton’s grip with a little more panic than he’d liked to show, and much to Rhys’ relief, Axton let go. “I’m super sorry! I’m _so_ drunk, man, I’m _so_ drunk and my mind is _not_ in the right place for _that_.”

Axton looked disappointed for a second before touching Rhys comfortingly on the shoulder.

“Hey, it’s okay, we’ve all been there. Want me to walk you to your car or something?”

Rhys shook his head and _instantly_ regretted it. The high of dancing around and shouting had worn off _spectacularly_ and now everything felt like a dull, painful burn that he wanted to get away from. His head ached, and his stomach was _screaming_ at him. Somewhere amidst it all, Rhys felt guilty for being so dismissive of Axton. A lot of guys wouldn’t have been so kind.

“No, no, I’m alright, I’m just… _out of it_. I just, I…” Rhys rambled as he looked around desperately, relief washing over him as he saw a glass door leading out to the garden. “I’m gonna get some air.”

“You sure you don’t want me to come with?” Axton shouted over the music, but Rhys couldn’t find it in himself to muster up an answer.

He needed somewhere to puke his guts up, and he needed it _now_.

…

Rhys spent the next ten minutes breathing steadily, sat down on the cobbled steps outside, but he couldn’t throw up. There were too many people outside _too_ , and he didn’t want anyone to see him like that, even if he had no clue who these people were.

Also, throwing up on somebody’s _garden_? Rhys had standards, and he would never let them drop _that_ low. He needed to find a bathroom, but he suspected that most of them were very, _very_ heavily occupied.

So, Rhys was sat, huddled up and breathing out into the cold night, looking up at the sky and _willing_ the sickness he felt to go away. He thought that _maybe_ drinking some more might take the edge off of it, but the thought of alcohol made him feel even _sicker_. He hadn’t even made his way to through to the kitchen yet – _God knows_ where that is – so the likelihood of finding himself some tap water was off the table.

Rhys was then struck with the ingenious idea to _go home_ , but he mentally kicked himself for getting his hopes up on _that_ ; all four of his friends would have to be willing to go home. If Rhys was being honest with himself, he knew that August had probably lost the car-key by now, anyway.

His options were looking pretty slim.

Rhys stood up with a huff, shakily, holding onto whatever he could as he tried to find balance on his own two feet, before heading back into the party to find a vacant toilet.

…

Walking around the house, Rhys noticed that there were less and less people the higher you went up. There were a good couple of floors to the sizable mansion he was in, and they were all lined with very cushy, expensive-looking carpets and furnishings. By the fourth floor he reached, Rhys was relieved to find that there was _nearly_ nobody there, save for a grossly intoxicated couple making out next to a windowsill and a group of friends trying to enact a séance in somebody’s – presumably Angel’s – bedroom, but he didn’t interrupt.

There was a hallway on the floor Rhys had reached where there weren’t any Halloween decorations, and although part of Rhys felt that he was _intruding_ in somebody’s home, he didn’t have any bad intentions – he was just going to throw up somewhere nice and quiet then _leave._ That wasn’t a crime, was it?

It probably was.

Either way, Rhys – being the very rational and smart person that he was in his current state of mind – chose a door down the silent hallway at random to go into and check for a bathroom. He opened the large door as quietly as he could, and stuck his head inside.

Oh God.

There was an _adult_ in this room.

Rhys whipped his head around frantically, panicking as the figure in the room – who was sat at a desk, with much quieter music playing from a small speaker next to them as they were filing some paperwork – looked up from their seat to look at Rhys in disbelief.

“I am _so_ -” Rhys started, before stopping mid-sentence as his eyes fell on the en suite bathroom, adjacent to the office’s door. The bathroom was open, and there was a _toilet right there_.

He couldn’t stop himself.

Rhys threw himself into the office and through the bathroom, dropping to his knees over the toilet and _emptying his guts_ into it painfully loudly. Rhys could barely make out as the man at the desk spoke, scraping his chair against the floor and marching his way over to the bathroom.

“Oh, for crying out loud!” The man said, throwing the door open with a lot more force than was necessary as he looked down at Rhys, who was feeling very, _very_ awkward.

Rhys said nothing as he finished and stood up, closing the lid and flushing the toilet, his face painted a vibrant red in humiliation. He felt a little better for getting some of the excess alcohol out of his system, but now he just wanted _more_ , because the embarrassment was _crippling_.

When he turned around fully to look at the man, his expression softened and turned into something more mocking.

“What’s wrong, cupcake?” The man said teasingly as he looked Rhys up and down. “Can’t handle your liquor? Kids these days.”

Rhys was half expecting the man to punch him and throw him out of the office, but instead, the man picked up a towel from the side of the sink and ran it under the faucet for a while. After wringing it, he offered it over to Rhys, who took it and wiped his face before resting it on his forehead to cool himself down. Through the mist of mortification and drunkenness, Rhys managed to make eye-contact with the man.

 _Damn_.

The man had heterochromatic eyes, much like Rhys’ own; but his were shockingly blue and green, unlike Rhys’ blue and brown ones. His face was sculpted and unmistakably _handsome_ , and he had a witty, charming aura about him that made Rhys feel strangely comfortable. His eyebrows were arched as he looked at Rhys, and the devilish smirk he was wearing suited him well, but his attractiveness didn’t do much for Rhys’ embarrassment.

Rhys looked down from the man’s face, and saw that they were about the same height, but the man was _much_ broader than Rhys was; his shoulders were strong, and the jacket he was wearing carved out his masculine frame nicely.

The more rational side of Rhys pleaded with him to act _sensibly_ – to tell the man that he was _unbelievably sorry_ that he’d just thrown up in a toilet that looked to be worth much more than all of Rhys’ belongings combined – but the alcohol left in Rhys told him to start _flirting_ ; or get the guy’s number, or do _something_ with him.

The man made the first move anyway.

“You okay there, princess? You’re not gonna faint on me, are ya?” He asked, and Rhys was left to battle with himself internally on how to approach the situation he’d been faced with.

“I’m sorry, mister.” Rhys replied, slurring as little as he could, “I got _really_ carried away.”

“I can see that.”

There was a silence, and Rhys offered the man his towel back. The man motioned to a laundry basket, which Rhys haphazardly threw the towel at. Rhys stumbled a bit, and the man caught him with a hand on Rhys’ arm, steadying him. Rhys couldn’t help the blush that surfaced on his face as the man held on a little longer than was needed.

“You _sure_ you’re not gonna faint on me, kitten?”

“I’m sure.” He smiled at the man, slightly apologetically.

The man didn’t take his arm away.

Instead, he started rubbing tiny circles into Rhys’ elbow, and Rhys’ blush grew. The man kept _looking_ Rhys up and down, checking him out, but the younger man didn’t mind the attention.

“You alright now, then, babe? You wanna get back to the party?”

Rhys shook his head unhappily. He definitely _didn’t_ want to go back downstairs any time soon.

“Fair enough. You in Angel’s year?”

“Mm-hm. You’re her… dad?”

“Yep. Jack to you, though.”

“Jack.” Rhys repeated, rolling the man’s name around on his tongue, drawing out the syllables, his mind struggling to process the information. “It’s uh, it’s Rhys.”

“Eh,” Jack said, thinking out loud, “I guess you can stay and keep me company if you want, babe.”

Rhys smiled, happy that Jack wasn’t going to kick him out. He didn’t particularly know _what_ he was doing at that moment – half-flirting with his classmate’s _father_ – but there was something really _nice_ about the quietness that Jack offered, especially as Jack led him out of the bathroom and plopped him down on a leather couch next to his desk.

“Stay here until you stop feeling sick. Don’t want a pretty little thing like you getting himself into trouble, now do we?” Jack asked him as he sauntered back over to his paperwork.

Rhys couldn’t help but instantly stand up from his seat and follow Jack over, standing closely to the older man as he sat down in his chair and looked at Rhys amusedly.

A strange sensation washed over Rhys as his sickness was replaced with something else. _Fuck it_ , Rhys thought to himself as he pressed a leg between Jack’s own, bending down.

“Oh, _wow_.” Jack laughed as Rhys bent down clumsily and threw his arms around the older man’s neck, nearly falling into his lap. “Guess they don’t call it liquid courage for nothing, huh, kid?”

Rhys grumbled at himself, because he was really _bad_ at being sexy, but he _really_ wanted to mess around with this guy. Vaughn always said he had a _hot-dad thing_.

Vaughn was always right.

But at this moment in time, Rhys _really_ didn’t care. He was drunk, horny, and in the lap of some strong, mysterious stranger. It felt _great_.

Rhys leaned forward to plant a very lazy, sloppy kiss on the older man, running his hands through Jack’s hair, and Jack settled his hands on the back of Rhys’ thighs with a strong, protective grip. _That_ felt great, too.

The two men broke their messy kiss for air, and Rhys started panting, throwing his hands on Jack’s chest to unbutton his shirt. Rhys’ vision was blurry and his mind wasn’t prepared for the _complexity_ of shirt buttons, but Jack was patient as he revelled, watching the kid eagerly try and tear his shirt off of him.

They continued like that for a while; Rhys clumsily trying his best to act _sophisticated_ and _provocative_ as Jack sat there smugly, enjoying the attention Rhys was giving him, praising everything he did right with a smile and some sweet words or a slightly more suggestive touch.

Rhys bent into Jack willingly as he told him to, and Jack couldn’t supress the laugh that arose within him when the kid started beaming proudly after he _finally_ managed to get Jack’s shirt off. Everything was messy and uncoordinated, but the two of them were enjoying it anyway.

“You’re a nice little distraction from paperwork, aren’t you, kiddo?” Jack smirked up at Rhys, who was currently trying his best to take his _own_ shirt off. Rhys pulled the piece of clothing over his head and scowled, throwing it down onto the floor beside Jack’s chair.

“Don’t call me _kiddo_.”

Jack was going to laugh, but his reaction was cut off by a familiar buzz. He looked over to his desk, but it wasn’t his phone that was ringing. Peering over the younger man’s shoulder, Jack saw Rhys’ phone light up from behind the material of his trousers.

“Either your ass comes with a vibrate function, or someone’s calling you, babe.”

“Huh?” Rhys said, picking himself up from Jack’s chest to look at the older man confusedly. Jack reached around him to put his hand in Rhys’ back pocket, bringing Rhys’ phone up to wave it in his face.

Rhys looked at his phone with _contempt_. The caller ID showed that Fiona was calling him.

_Fuck you, Fiona._

The younger man sighed at his friend’s bad timing and took the cell from Jack’s hand, getting off his lap to sit on the edge of the desk as he put his phone to his ear.

“ _Goddamn it,_ Rhys!” She shouted over the party’s music at him angrily, and Rhys could hear her pant as if she was running, “where _are_ you?!”

Rhys looked at Jack for answers, and Jack offered him a shrug.

“…Toilet?”

“Well, get your ass to the van _now_.” She said sharply. “I just got a tip that some neighbour’s called the cops. We gotta get out of here.”

There was a pause as she opened a door, and the music got quieter.

“August and Sash are waiting at the van, and I got Vaughn with me. Hurry your ass _up_.” There was a click, and the call ended.

Rhys sat there speechlessly as he brought the phone slowly down from his ear. Jack leaned over from his chair to touch Rhys’ knee, giving him a wink.

“Well, that was fun while it lasted,” the older man said casually, “but you should probably go and catch your ride before it takes off without you.”

“Yeah…” Rhys agreed, begrudgingly. The younger slid off of the desk slowly, not wanting to leave, knocking a pen off of it as he did so. Rhys bent down to catch it, and an _ingenious_ idea came to him.

Rhys grabbed Jack’s forearm and clicked the pen open, writing across Jack’s skin as quickly as he could before putting the pen back on the table and walking quickly to the door. He waved bashfully at Jack, who waved amusedly in reply, looking over the set of numbers that Rhys had drawn into his skin.

…

Rhys ran down the stairs and past the sea of drunk teenagers, who were _somehow_ still partying _madly_. He made his way to the front door in the most efficient way he could remember, stumbling through the labyrinth of rooms in the mansion, before he finally made his way outside, walking quickly across the half-passed-out stragglers and abandoned cars.

When he finally reached the van, August had honked his horn at Rhys and they’d waved him over, ushering him to get into the car so they could drive home.

“Okay, okay,” Rhys said, settling into the middle seat of the back row between Vaughn and Fiona, “I’m here. Sorry for the holdup.”

“It’s cool, no big,” August said, starting up the ignition.

“Uh, Rhys?” Vaughn asked, tapping him on the arm.

“Yeah, bro?” Rhys replied, drawing his seatbelt over his chest and settling the best he could into the tiny space his friends had left for him. Silence washed over the van like a wave, and Rhys looked up to see all of his friends staring at him suspiciously.

Vaughn was the first to break the silence.

“…Where’s your shirt?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAH! I'm really excited for the next couple of chapters of this fic. I've been doing some planning over the course of this week for some new fics, too °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°
> 
> I hope you enjoy the new chapter~!
> 
> (Psst. I changed the fic's name as well.)

Rhys' only reply to Vaughn's question was a distressed sound, but, much to Rhys' relief, his friends decided that they were going to prioritize getting away from the house party over questioning Rhys about his lack of clothing. August put his (suprisingly not lost) car key in the ignition before turning the key and starting the old van up. Fiona was sat to the left of Rhys, and she was pissed in more ways than one.

Then again, Fiona was really, _really_ wary of getting arrested. There was something about a jail cell that sent Fiona on edge, and Rhys couldn't really blame her for getting jittery whenever she heard that the cops were on their trail. To put it bluntly, Fiona and her sister weren't saints. Nor did they do a great job of abiding by the law.

So, yes, Fiona was eager to drive away from the potential bust-up.

...

Apart from the  _incident_ when Rhys had entered the van concerning his lack of a shirt, the five’s little escape attempt had gone off without a hitch. August was _admirably good_ at driving while he was drunk – and there’d only been three or four mailbox casualties in the past when they’d started going to parties, so now August was basically a pro. Rhys wasn’t very good at driving when he was stone-cold _sober_ , so he had no idea how August had developed his rather commendable talent. Rhys’ driving instructor would probably _thank God_ if he suddenly picked up August’s driving mastery, but that wasn’t about to happen anytime soon.

August turned the van down to the backstreet behind Rhys’ house and parked it in the same place he always did – which, luckily for Rhys, was the perfect vantage point to climb up onto his garage and into his window (which was thankfully still open, as he and Fiona had left it at the start of the night).

“Okay, team, who’s giving me a leg up?” Rhys asked the van’s occupants as the it rolled to a complete stop and August turned the music down as to not attract any attention from the adjacent houses on Rhys’ street. The four friends looked at each other pleadingly.

“Not me!” Sasha nearly screamed, quickly followed by August, who childishly exclaimed the same thing. Fiona and Vaughn were left to eye each other from either sides of the backseat before they leaned over Rhys with an angry passion and drawing their hands upwards, both of them scowling, brows furrowed.

Three games of rock, paper, scissors later, Vaughn was clambering out of the van along with Rhys and offering the taller boy leverage to get back into his room. Vaughn dramatically heaved under Rhys’ weight, earning a laugh from Fiona, Sasha and August, and Rhys repaid his best-bro’s joke by flipping him off sarcastically before making his way to his bedroom window and climbing in quietly, shutting the window after him.

Rhys tiptoed around his room, avoiding the floorboards he knew would make a creak if he walked on them too much, making his way to bed. He peeled off the remainder of his tattered clothes and tried weakly to scratch away some of the dried fake blood on his arms, but he gave up not too long after he started, opting instead to leave it until the morning.

The brunette sighed as his head hit the familiar, cushy warmth of his pillows. He drew his blankets up completely over him, breathing in the scent of detergent – which, for the record, was a much nicer smell than sweaty, drunken teenagers and party food. His worn-out body ached for a nice, warm shower, but Rhys dismissed his body in favour of going to sleep, content in the fact that he had all of Sunday to recover from the copious amounts of alcohol that would be coming back to haunt him in the morning.

Exhaling loudly, Rhys turned over to tuck himself in amongst the sheets and revel in the softness of his mattress, dozing quietly with his eyes shut. He managed to go to sleep like that; buried and wrapped in a pile of cotton sheets, head tucked into his pillows.

 _God_ , he deserved a nice, long sleep.

…

Large hands gripping the backs of his thighs, quiet music muffled under tiny sounds of pleasure. The basslines roaring from the party downstairs fell silent as praising words were whispered into Rhys’ ears and he _loved_ it as he wriggled closer to the warmth he was receiving. Rhys was breathing quickly, deeply, and his heart was beating _loud_ as his lips connected with someone else’s – and there was a strong stranger sucking passionately at his skin, tasting him, wanting him, claiming him. Rhys’ hands were gripping the stranger’s neck; he didn’t want to let go – this stranger was too _nice_ to let go of, they made Rhys feel _protected_ and _safe_. It was hazy, but the haze wasn’t uncomfortable. Emotions mixed together smoothly, and the stranger’s hands fit around _every bit_ of Rhys so _perfectly_ , it was like a puzzle falling into place and Rhys felt at home with this stranger. He never, _ever_ wanted the stranger to stop kissing him, or _holding_ him, and Rhys _belonged_ in their lap.

And then, the sudden realisation hit Rhys like a ton of bricks.

The stranger’s name was Jack.

“Jack…” Rhys breathed against him, and Jack kissed him again – harder, more passionately than before, and it made something within Rhys stir madly. “Jack, I need you!” The younger male shouted, gripping onto Jack unashamedly, nuzzling into the warmness of Jack’s chest and grinding his hips against the older man’s crotch, needy and desperate.

“Rhys, baby, you’re _so_ sexy-“

Rhys was woken up and jolted out of his dream by a sharp knock at his door. Rhys spluttered, untangling himself from the mess of sheets he’d worked himself into and the knocking persisted urgently, loudly. The brunette groaned as he threw a pillow over the remains of his Halloween costume so whoever was about to enter his room wouldn’t see it, before ducking under the sheets again to conceal his hungover, fake-blood-covered face. He didn’t want to wake up from that dream.

He didn’t want to wake up from dreaming of Jack.

“What is it?” Rhys called, realising that the knocking wasn’t going to desist until he told it to, and he was given a curt reply.

“Rhys, it’s three o’clock in the afternoon and you’re not even out of bed. I’m very disappointed in your attitude, young man.” Rhys’ mother called from behind the wood of his bedroom’s door, and Rhys stifled another groan. He managed to pop his head out from under the covers and reach over the side of the bed for his phone, which he’d discarded carelessly on the floor the previous night and – to Rhys’ absolute _horror_ – his mother was telling the truth. It was 3PM.

He’d slept through more than half of his Sunday and, if the lack of messages he’d received from his more often than not socially-active friends, they’d been sleeping off yesterday too.

“Mom, I… I’m sorry, I didn’t even notice.”

“No, I suppose you didn’t.” His mother spoke again, tone unwavering in sternness, still outside of Rhys’ room. “Let’s not make a habit of this, shall we? Did you go to sleep late?”

“Uh, something like that.”

There was a tut of annoyance from the other side of the door, but – thankfully for Rhys – his mom left the conversation at that. He heard her walk away, shoes pattering downstairs. Rhys scowled at the door in resentment as he realised that his conscious brain was unable to mimic the pleasure he’d been experiencing before he’d woken up, missing the way Jack’s kisses had felt so _real_.

In truth, Rhys was a hopeless romantic. He’d be lying to himself if he thought for even a second that he’d be forgetting about Jack any time soon – but that was okay. Rhys found things a lot easier to cope with if he was crushing on someone; it’d always been the case. He laid in his bed for a while, gathering his thoughts about the previous night and trying his best to piece together _exactly_ what happened in that office.

Rhys remembers dropping a pen – writing a number on Jack’s arm, and…

It was at this point that Rhys’ body decided to process just how _much_ alcohol he drank last night, and a _splitting_ headache erupted painfully within the brunette, jolting him away from his daydreams about the fling in the office. He managed to control the migraine by putting his hand on his forehead and breathing steadily, a dull ache replacing the sharp pain from before.

This was usually how Rhys’ Sunday mornings (or, in today’s case, Sunday afternoons) went; rolling around in bed, lazily stropping about his own self-inflicted pains. Rhys’ rational side begged him to take a shower and eat _something_ , and his body begrudgingly complied.

So, Rhys dragged himself out of the safe confides of his bed and stumbled over to his bedroom’s door, closing it behind him. The brunette winced as he was hit with harsh sunlight pouring in from the open curtains of his house as he made his way down the hallway to the bathroom, collecting a towel from the railing before stepping into the shower.

The warm pelts of water were a welcome comfort on Rhys’ aching, tired muscles, glad that he didn't feel like he was going to throw up any time soon. Rhys stood under the shower head for a while, allowing the water to cascade down on him for a while as his mind drifted away, back to his dream earlier – which he was rather rudely awoken from.

He’d been dreaming about that man at the party – Jack – and how much more fun he’d had in Jack’s office compared to the blur of fake enjoyment from socialising downstairs. Rhys ran his hands over his body, running one through his hair slowly to work away the tension that’d built around his head, trailing the other hand downwards, his head-ache lessening in painfulness.

Jerking off was pretty good for hangovers, wasn’t it? Rhys figured as much.

However, no matter how much he tried, Rhys couldn’t imagine Jack’s hands running over his body – because Jack’s hands were so much bigger than his own. Rhys tried to think of Jack’s voice – low, sultry, telling him that he was a good boy – but it didn’t compare to the real thing, and Rhys’ mind wasn’t in the right place. Rhys was never very good at pleasuring himself; he needed someone _there with him_ to get off.

So, Rhys dropped the idea.

Turning the shower off, stepping out, and wrapping a towel around himself, Rhys figured that now was a better time than any to get some food. He made his way downstairs into the kitchen, greeting his dad as he passed him in the study on the way, and made himself a sandwich. After that, Rhys clambered lazily back upstairs, slumping back into his bed, dozing again.

He reached for his cellphone to find a text from Vaughn, and another one from Fiona, both of them complaining to him about their hangovers and asking him how he was. A tiny part of Rhys wished that he’d received a text from someone else, but he knew he was just being _silly_. Rhys was shaken out of his thoughts as a bombardment of notifications came through from the five friends’ group chat.

They’d been talking about the party for half an hour or so, but Rhys couldn’t be bothered to scroll up that far.

_> Fiona: So, I heard a lot of people bailed after we did too, but the cops only came because of a noise complaint. Apparently they left after asking everyone to tone it down. We didn’t even need to bail._

_> August: Damn, that’s shitty. That party was sick._

_> Sasha: Yeah, but like, where did Rhys even go? Where the fuck did his /shirt/ go?_

_> Fiona: I betcha Rhys got luckyyyy ;)_

_> Sasha: Oh. My. God._

_> Vaughn: Not again. Who was it this time?_

Rhys groaned inwardly at his friends’ childishness, typing out a reply on his phone, squinting against the screen’s brightness. Rhys wasn't stupid; he knew he really shouldn’t tell them what he’d _actually_ been up to at the party, or they'd never shut up about it.

_> You’re all RUDE. I’m not a total whore. I’ll have you know, I didn’t hook up with anyone last night.  
_

_> Vaughn: Emphasis on the word ‘total’._

_> Sasha: OH DAMN, VAUGHN!_

_> August changed the group’s name to ‘SOMEONE FETCH THE ICE BECAUSE WE’VE GOT OURSELVES A BURN’_

Rhys groaned out loud this time.

His friends were _nerds_.

…

Monday rolled around quicker than Rhys would’ve liked, but on the plus-side, his hangover was gone. The brunette forced himself out of bed and languidly got dressed, cursing the strands of hair that refused to be gelled and styled back neatly. Rhys was barely able to eat a bowl of cereal before he heard the obnoxious honk of August’s van’s horn, signalling to Rhys that he and the rest of the group were ready to go to school.

Making his way outside and sliding into his usual middle seat, Rhys crawled tiredly over Fiona as everyone greeted him.

“Thanks for the lift, man.” Rhys told August out of habit.

“Stop thanking me,” August leaned back in a cranky mood, turning his key to start up the van, eyes dark from a lack of sleep, “I’ve been giving you a ride since we were sophomores, sweet-cheeks.”

Rhys shrugged, pressing the back of his head against the worn leather of the van’s seats, and Fiona shot Rhys a knowing eye-roll.

“Someone didn’t get much sleep last night.” She whispered to Rhys, eyeing August’s temper from the front mirror of the car, amusement clear in her tone. Rhys nudged her back in acknowledgement, but he couldn’t blame August; Rhys’ mood wasn’t exactly sunshine and daisies – he was exhausted too. It was then that Sasha decided to start up a conversation with the group from her shotgun seat as the van took off, chewing noisily on a pop-tart as she did so. The old van trundled along across the smooth asphalt of Rhys’ estate, and the group settled into a friendly – albeit drowsy – discussion.

“Lessons today are _awful_.” Sasha said dramatically.

“I have chemistry _first_ ,” Vaughn agreed, equally as exasperated, “it’s like they employed the goddamned devil to make our timetables. Where’s the love, huh?”

“It’s all on Rhys, apparently.” Fiona quipped. “I mean, if the party’s anything to go by, lover-boy.”

“Oh my god,” Rhys replied, drawing out the syllables of each word, shooting Fiona a look of contempt, “are you ever, _ever_ going to drop that?”

“You were the one rocking up to the van with no shirt on, _lover-boy._ ” Sasha teased, swivelling around in her seat to join in with her sister’s tormenting, picking up the new nickname.

Rhys thanked the lord that the journey to school wasn’t very long as August pulled up in a student parking bay before Rhys could be grilled by the girls even more. He ushered Vaughn out of the car quickly, adjusting his bag as he jogged away from Fiona and Sasha’s taunts.

“You can’t hide forever!” Sasha shouted from the van, breaking out into a sprint as she followed him. “We’re gonna solve the mystery of the missing shirt eventually, Rhys! You hear me?!" Sasha's sprint grinded to a hault as she shouted after Rhys, cupping her hands to her mouth, "WE’RE GONNA FIND OUT WHO YOU _BANGED_!”

“I DIDN’T _BANG_ ANYONE!” Rhys seethed, turning back to shout at Sasha for a minute before realising where he was, dodging the suspicious looks he was getting from the other students in the parking lot. Rhys cleared his throat and kept walking.

…

The first time Jack texted Rhys, it was during second period, English. Rhys had been chatting happily and idly to the blue-haired cheerleader he met on Saturday (whose name was, in fact, Maya), catching up with her since their antics at the party when _it_ happened, and Rhys could feel his heart quite literally skip a beat in time with his phone's vibration.

_> Hey, princess, guess who._

Rhys stared blankly at his screen, gripping onto his phone intensely as butterflies bubbled up in his chest. Rhys saved the number to his phone hastily before typing out his reply, thinking about what would be the right thing to say.

_> I’m guessing… Jack? Xxx_

Oh Jesus. Was that wrong? Did Rhys need to put something cooler? That was a lot of kisses. Jack hadn’t used kisses. Oh god, he fucked it up, didn’t he?!

_> Jack: Smart boy ;) _

There was a pause, but Jack sent another message before Rhys had time to reply.

_> Jack: You’re in class now, right? And you’re texting?_

_> Well, yeah. Duh._

_> Jack: That’s SO naughty, babe. They ought to give you a detention._

Rhys could feel the heat rush to his cheeks, but he decided not to rise to it. Jack seemed like the type of guy who was up for a challenge – or maybe Jack was just an incredibly flirty person.

_> I guess you’re supposed to be working right now too?_

_> Jack: Meetings are boring, Rhysie, change the subject._

Rhys figured that Jack must work at some business to have all that money to buy a house like he’d seen at Angel’s party. Rhys wanted to ask Jack more about his work, but he decided against it, not wanting to bore Jack. Besides, Rhys was enjoying the light-heartedness of their conversation, and mentioning work might bring the tone down.

_> Well, what do you want to talk about?_

_> Jack: Let’s talk about Saturday._

Rhys gulped, and Jack texted again.

_> Jack: Saturday was fun, baby boy. I hope you had as much fun as I did._

_> Of course I enjoyed it! :D_

_> Jack: I haven’t been able to get your cute little ass out of my head since._

Barely able to contain the excitement he felt as Jack complimented him, even _more_ heat rushed to Rhys’ cheeks, painting his face a dark red colour. He dodged Maya’s playful looks when she asked him who he was texting, and he felt like such a _kid_. After a little while, Rhys managed to get his fanboy-squealing out of the way before typing out a short reply, deciding to play as hard to get as he could and take the sarcastic route.

_> My ass isn’t little! How dare you!_

_> Jack: I could hold your ass in one hand, kiddo. Your ass is REALLY little. _

_> You have huge hands, so your argument is invalid._

_> Jack: You know what they say about guys with huge hands, though, Rhysie?_

_> Yeah, I do…_

Rhys laughed at his own sense of humour as he sent his second text in quick succession, shortly after the first.

_> Big gloves._

…

Rhys had spent the rest of the school day glued to his phone’s screen, choosing seats in the back of the class so his professors wouldn’t notice that he was texting instead of paying attention to their lectures. He and Jack had slipped into a comfortable, playful discussion about meaningless things, and Rhys was happy to be taking Jack’s mind off of how boring his workday was. The two were chatting about trivial things, Jack making Rhys blush from the other side of his phone all the while, and they’d just gotten onto Rhys telling Jack the story of how August ended up in the ER after jumping from a two-story window into a kiddie pool when the bell for lunchtime rang, leaving the younger brunette to apologise, telling Jack that he’d be back to keep him company once lunch-break was over. Rhys knew that his friends needed unrequited attention at dinnertime, because one of them would probably start a food-fight without Rhys watching their behaviour like a hawk.

It was just one of the joys of being _mother hen_.

He walked up to his friends’ usual spot in the centre of the cafeteria, pulling up the chair In between the two boys already sat there and waving at Fiona and Sasha as they carried their trays through a sea of screaming teenagers, completing the group.

The five of them ate with a noisy chatter, and Rhys listened to his friends’ nagging complaints about moody teachers and how many homework assignments they’d been given already, unable to contribute much about how his day had been going because he’d spent every minute of it on his phone. As expected, Rhys’ mind was still very adamant that his friends shouldn’t find out about the silly little fling he’d been having with their classmate’s dad.

For one, he’d never hear the end of it from any of them. Vaughn would be gloating proudly at how well he’d judged Rhys for having the aforementioned _hot-dad thing_ for _weeks,_ and he could already hear Fiona singing _gold-digger_ in his ear; not to mention that Sasha would probably insist on meeting Jack – and Rhys definitely didn’t want _that_ – and August would belittle Rhys’ romantic choices like he always did – he’d probably say that Rhys was being perved on or something ridiculous like that.

“So, _lover-boy_.” Fiona said with a smirk, and Rhys pulled his gaze from the floor to look at her, frowning at the nickname. “You gonna tell us who you banged at the party yet, _or…_ ”

“For the last _goddamned time_ , _Fi_ ,” he seethed, a little angry that his friends hadn’t picked up that their teasing definitely _wasn’t_ welcome, “I didn’t. Bang. ANYONE.”

"Don't be such a _prude_ , Rhys, why don't you just tell us?!" Sasha interjected.

"Because there's nothing to tell!"

"I can tell when you're lying, bro." Vaughn decided to join in on the argument.

"You are so, totally, _lying!_ " Fiona shouted, pointing an accusing finger at Rhys, and their heated discussion spiralled into a cat-fight.

"I am not!"

"You are!"

"But I'm _not_!"

"But you _are_ -"

“Hey, ‘scuse. I... I hope I'm not interrupting anything.”

A polite, deep voice drew Rhys and Fiona away from their petty spat. Rhys looked up to the front of the table to see the jock from the party – Axton – stood at the head of the table respectfully, waiting for one of the table’s occupants to reply to him. Rhys saw that Axton’s eyes were fixed on him, and Rhys gave Axton a once-over before looking past the tall boy’s shoulder to see the football team huddled a couple of feet away from the table.

“Can'tcha see we're having a family dispute over here, pal?” Sasha broke the silence, addressing the jock.

“Well, if it’s, ah, if it’s not too much trouble,” Axton murmured, a coy expression that looked out-of-place resting over his rough features, “Rhys, could I speak to you alone for a minute?”

“Uh…” Rhys droned, picking his bag up and adjusting it over his shoulder, standing up. “Sure.”

Axton nodded as he led Rhys away from the cafeteria with a hand on the small of his back, and the football team _wolf-whistled_ as the two of them made their way outside. Rhys was quick to step away from Axton’s touch as they stood by the doorway of the school’s mess-hall, and Rhys had no idea how to address the situation _at all_ , but – by the looks of things – neither did Axton.

“So…” Axton started, taking his time to lean against the brick wall he was next to, breathing out slowly.

“So.” Rhys repeated, swaying on his heels uncomfortably. An awkward silence followed.

“At the party, the other day,” Axton began, looking as if he’d gone over what he was about to say to Rhys a thousand times in his head already, “I’m sorry I didn’t follow you. I hope I didn’t come across as a dick, you know?”

Rhys had the strangest inkling as to where the conversation was going, and he stayed silent out of awkwardness, half-wishing he could come up with a good enough idea to excuse himself with.

“You’re, um… You’re super cute, Rhys. ‘Specially when you’re all tipsy and stuff. I’m thinking maybe you and I should…”

Rhys stayed silent, swallowing, willing Axton not to finish his sentence and folding his arms across his chest out of discomfort.

“Maybe we should go out some time?”

…

“PAHAHAHAHA!”

Jack erupted into a _fit_ of laughter on the other side of the phone, and Rhys stifled his own giggles with his spare hand as he held his phone up to his ear, sitting cross-legged on his bed. Jack wouldn’t stop laughing, and Rhys was pretty sure the older man was _doubled over_ by this point. Rhys bit back a laugh too, unable to stop the occasional burst of hysterics that escaped from his mouth.

“Oh, _god_ , Rhysie! I can’t believe that chump asked you out outside of a _fucking cafeteria!_ I mean it’s just, it’s _priceless_ , Rhys! It’s priceless!”

“I know, I know!” Rhys couldn’t stop the giggles bursting out from his mouth as he held his phone a little closer to his ear, as if bringing the device closer would bring Jack closer too.

“No, no, but like, the funniest thing was when I told him no,” Rhys started as Jack’s laughing fit calmed down a little, pace quick as if he was working his way up to the best punchline of all time, “and he was just like, _stood there_ , and I was all, _okay byeee!_ And I just, Jack, oh my god, I just walked back to my table and started eating again! And my friends were sat there like, _Rhys, what just happened?_ And I was just like, _mm, nothing special._ ”

“ _Nothing special!_ ” Jack repeated, erupting loudly into more hysterics, trying desperately to catch his breath before giving into laughter again. “Rhysie, baby, princess, sweetie-pie! You’re _savage_!”

“I know!” Rhys shouted down the line again, before the two males’ laughter gradually died down.

“Ah,” Jack said, and Rhys could imagine the older man wiping a fake tear out of his eye as he did so, “why didn’t you say _yes_ , though, Rhysie? C’mon. I bet everyone’s dying for a piece of the football team. I know my Angel is. Or, wait, is she obsessed with the cheer squad? Eh, technicalities. Either way, isn’t this Axton guy like, every Pandora High student’s wet dream?”

“Well, I don’t care. He’s not _my_ idea of a wet dream.” Rhys said casually and without much thought before slapping a hand onto his face, shocked at the suggestiveness coming out of his mouth.

“Oh, really?” Jack spoke, playfulness edging into his tone. “Well, Rhysie, I’m sure you can do a lot better than some stupid ass-wipe _jock_.”

Rhys giggled involuntarily, and he felt himself fall for Jack just a little bit more.

“You know what, Jack?”

“What, kitten?”

“I think I can do better too.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLOOOO AGAIN! (´•ω•̥`) It’s been… a while since I updated. AND I’M SO SORRY! I hope you enjoy this chapter anyway <3
> 
> (psst it’s unbeta’ed and I’m very tired. does... does anyone want to be my beta.)

Rhys had gone to sleep with a huge smile on his face that night because of Jack’s phone call. Jack hadn’t told Rhys exactly _why_ he’d called, but Rhys couldn’t help the blush that spread its way across his cheeks when Jack had asked him if he’d gotten home safely, and if anything bad had happened that day. There was something about Jack – and, admittedly, Rhys didn’t know _what_ – that made Rhys want to talk to him _constantly_. Jack was more than just engaging; he was charming and charismatic, and he always had something funny to say, which made Rhys a little disappointed when the older man hung up because “it’s late and kids like you need your sleep”. Naturally, Rhys had retorted by telling Jack that he wasn’t a _kid_ , but Jack had laughed and told him to go to bed anyway.

Rhys would never say it out loud – because he’d sound like a love-sick teenager if he did – but it made him sad whenever Jack had to go. Rhys’ silly little crush on Jack had turned him into an overemotional, longing wreck, but Rhys was content as he laid in his bed and imagined scenarios where he and Jack met up again, or Jack asking to be his boyfriend, or feeling Jack kiss him again nonetheless.

Obviously, in the small amount of time that Rhys had known Jack, he knew the older man well enough to understand that Jack was not the type of person to be _sentimental_ and _mushy_ , but imagining him to be those things was comforting to Rhys; and, who knows – maybe Jack would turn out to be a huge sap.

It just made Rhys gravitate towards Jack _more_.

…

For Rhys, the early hours of Tuesday morning was spent like the rest of the weekday mornings; with Rhys idly, tiredly getting ready for school as he watched the minutes tick by and tried his best to complete the sheets of homework he’d probably be better off doing before the day they were due. The boy pulled on his uniform as usual, combing his amber hair back to the best of his ability with one hand as he held a toothbrush in the other. Rhys spit out the excess toothpaste into the sink once he’d finished brushing before making his way downstairs and shoving his boots on, relieved to see that he had a good ten minutes before he’d hear August honking the van’s horn at him to go and catch his ride to school.

As Rhys did on the days where he had a few extra minutes to spare, he made himself a bowl of cereal, sat down at the table, and absent-mindedly shovelled his breakfast into his mouth.

It wasn’t exactly unheard of that Rhys had a _bad mood_ in the mornings: he simply wasn’t a _morning person_. However, on this Tuesday morning, the brunette was in a _particularly_ bad mood – a result of yesterday’s… _bothersome_ occurrences. It’d started off with Rhys’ friendspoking fun at him as they made their way to school, and then they’d _persisted_ to make fun of him at lunch-time, then the _Axton incident_ had happened, and then he’d _lied to Jack about it_ …

Really, Rhys didn’t know _why_ he told Jack that he’d said no when Axton asked him out – it was a spur of the moment type of thing; Jack had called him up yesterday evening and Rhys’ reflex was to blurt out that he’d shot down Axton’s offer.

Something deep in the back of Rhys’ mind told him that Jack wouldn’t be interested in him anymore if he knew that _other people_ were interested in him, and Rhys definitely didn’t want that to happen – he _enjoyed_ texting Jack, because Jack was so _mature_ and _smart_ and _handsome_ and _funny_ , and absolutely _better_ than anyone else at school.

Besides, Jack had been happy when he told him that he’d rejected Axton, so Rhys had decided that he’d made a good decision. Rhys didn’t know _why_ he felt the urge to act cool in front of the older man and make himself out to be this cold, ruthless boy who broke people’s hearts – but it was probably because the act stroked Jack’s ego, and Rhys was more than eager to do that.

In reality, things had gone down a lot differently than how Rhys had explained over the phone. Of course – because Rhys had the social awkwardness of a dishcloth – he’d quietly agreed to Axton’s invite and the two had made plans – stood there outside of the cafeteria – to go to the movies after school today. Axton had told Rhys to walk down the football pitch after lessons had ended to watch him and the team practise before he’d drive the two of them into town. Rhys had then proceeded to walk to chemistry on his own; no nasty comment to his friends about Axton included.

Jack didn’t need to know that.

Rhys’ phone vibrated across the table next to his bowl of cereal, alerting him that someone was calling. His expression soured a little as he looked at the screen to see Fiona’s face and number pop up on the screen, and he let it ring out, chewing on his breakfast crossly as she phoned again, still angry with her over their childish spat at dinnertime yesterday. However, by the third call, Rhys was tired of hearing the buzz of metal against wood and picked up.

There was a pause of silence as Rhys put his spoon down to bring his phone up to his ear as neither friend said anything, but Fiona decided to speak first, cutting through the silence with something akin to a groan.

“You angry with me over yesterday, Rhys?”

At least Fiona was referring to him by name today; no more _lover-boy_. Rhys tutted, putting his phone on the table and switching Fiona to speaker so he could hear her while he ate his cereal, picking up his spoon with his free hand.

“No.” He said curtly, testing to see if she was being serious or not.

“Well, I’m sorry anyway, you doof. We’re on the way to pick you up, ‘k?”

Rhys contemplated for a short moment before replying, exhaling audibly as he accepted Fiona’s bad attempt at an apology, knowing full well that Fiona barely ever said sorry, and that this was probably the best he was going to get out of her.

“Yeah, okay.” he spoke, shovelling the last spoonful of cereal into his mouth and swallowing as he thought. “I’m sorry for acting like a little bitch.” He offered as an olive branch, and Fiona took it.

“Eh, I’m used to it.” Fiona quipped, snorting, and Rhys couldn’t help the way his mouth quirked into a smile at his best friend’s snide remark. “You don’t need a ride home today though, right? Got yourself a _hot date_?” She went on, drawing out the syllables of her words, and Rhys flipped her off through the phone screen even though he knew she couldn’t see it.

“No,” Rhys said through gritted teeth, annoyed as he came to the realisation that his friends would be teasing him all day _again_ , “I don’t need a ride home.”

“Ah, yeah, remind me again _how exactly_ you scored with a _letterman_ of all people?” Fiona pried, and Rhys heard Sasha and August fight over the radio in the background of the other end of the line.

“It’s a long story, Fi. It involves cheerleaders. I’m sure you’re not interested.” Rhys replied dismissively as he got up to place his now-empty bowl into the sink.

…

Amazingly, his friends had decided not to push Rhys about his so-called ‘hot date’ too much throughout the day after the brunette had asked them – albeit not very politely – to drop it; emphasis on the words ‘too much’, as the four of them still inquired like crazy. Of course, Rhys wasn’t expecting his entire friend group’s topic of conversation to _not_ be about how he’d managed to score with the captain of the goddamned football team, but the four of them seemed to keep their teasing to a minimum. As was also expected, they’d asked Rhys trivial questions like what movie he was planning on seeing and if he was going to Axton’s place afterwards (which, for the record, he definitely was not).

During lunch, Fiona had asked Rhys how he’d managed to get himself a date with Axton a second time, and Rhys – with little else to do as he ate his dinner – made the decision to give in and tell her by describing how a girl from his English class he’d stumbled into had decided to play cupid in her drunken stupor and throw him and Axton together amidst the crowds of partying teenagers. Fiona had managed to pry out of Rhys that the two of them didn’t hook up because Rhys had consumed so much alcohol he felt like he was going to throw up, so he made a swift exit to the garden and didn’t see Axton for the rest of the evening – which was entirely true.

Upon hearing that he and Axton had met up at the party, Vaughn seemed to think that he’d cracked the case of the missing shirt, but Rhys insisted _again_ that he and Axton didn’t hook up. As the four of them ate lunch around their usual table, Vaughn persisted that Axton was the cause of Rhys’ shirt-loss, but Rhys’ only rebuttal was that he’d lost his shirt in _Jack’s office_ , and he wasn’t about to tell his entire group of friends _that_ chestnut.

Instead, Rhys decided to play it defensively.

“I don’t know why you’re all so fixated on my shirt. It’s _weird_.” He said.

“Um, gee, I don’t know, maybe it’s because you won’t just tell us _where_ your shirt went?” Vaughn countered, “Maybe it’s because you’re not giving us _any_ reason to believe that we should trust you when you say it’s not a big deal?”

“Well, maybe you all need to mind your own damn business.” Rhys snapped, folding his hands dramatically over his chest, and the group collectively rolled their eyes at Rhys’ immaturity.

“And maybe you need to stop taking your shirt off at parties.” Sasha replied, amusement clear in her voice, obviously not as riled up as Rhys.

“This is the first time someone’s taken my shirt off! I don’t know _why_ you all seem to think I’m some sort of sex-crazed maniac, because I’m not.” Rhys nearly shouted, earning bewildered, suspicious glances from the students at other tables around them, but Rhys was too enraptured in defending himself to care.

“Aha!” Vaughn said suddenly, pointing a finger in Rhys’ face, “So you admit it!”

“Admit what?” Rhys said, unfolding his arms in confusion.

“That somebody took your shirt off!” Vaughn replied, and Fiona tapped Vaughn on the shoulder as if he were some sort of detective genius.

“ _Oh my god_ ,” Rhys said stressfully as he racked his hands through his hair, “ _please_ don’t do that. Stop analysing everything I say, guys, because it’s, it’s just…”

Much to Rhys’ relief, Vaughn sensed the solemnity in Rhys’ words and held his hands up. “Okay, I’ll stop. Geez, bro, don’t work yourself up so much.”

Rhys grimaced, embarrassed by how seriously he’d taken Vaughn’s joke.

“God, Rhys,” Sasha comforted, “it’s okay, we’ll drop it.”

To put it shortly, the way Rhys’ friends were handling the whole _date incident_ wasn’t too bad.

…

Although the positive way his friends had reacted to Axton was one less thing to worry about (and by ‘positive’, Rhys meant ‘reasonable’), the thought of lying to Jack – although, not telling someone something they _don’t know about_ doesn’t strictly _count_ as lying – was eating away at Rhys as he scrawled messy notes down from his seat at the back of his English classroom. Maya kept turning around to gossip with him about his date (which seemed to entail a lot of bragging on her part about what a good matchmaker she was), but Rhys found it hard to focus on _anything_ as he felt his phone buzz in his pocket.

_> Jack: What’s cooking, good looking?_

Rhys covered his mouth as he snorted at Jack’s bad sense of humour as he typed out a reply, and he felt the urge to tell Jack about his date despite what he’d said yesterday evening. Much to Rhys’ relief, Jack’s terrible barrage of bad pickup lines was taking his mind away from how bad he felt. Rhys figured that’s the reason he’s so drawn to the older man; no matter what was wrong, Jack’s presence seemed to make everything better. It was a strange skill that Jack possessed – the ability to change Rhys’ mood with a snap of his fingers.

_> Jack: Baby, do you have a band aid?_

_> No, why?_

_> Jack: Because I scraped my knee when I fell for you._

Rhys put down his pencil to grab his phone with both hands so he could text Jack back quicker as he stifled a laugh, drawing his knees up to rest on the end of the chair so he could use his phone without being caught by the professor.

_> Oh my God, Jack, stop it with the pick-up lines._

_> Jack: Is your middle name Google? Because you’ve got everything I’m searching for._

_> These are so terrible. I hope you know how terrible they are._

_> Jack: If I could rearrange the alphabet, I’d put U and I next to each other, babe._

_> JACK, STOP._

_> Jack: I’m so jealous of your clothes, Rhysie. They get to be all over you all day :(_

_> Okay, that one was good._

Rhys never seemed to take notes in class anymore.

…

The end of the day arrived much more quickly than Rhys was expecting, but time seemed to fly when he spent all day glued to his phone screen. The brunette had made his way to the student parking lot to wave off his friends as they drove back home without him in August’s van before heading down to the football field as he’d planned to do yesterday, where he found Axton and the rest of the jocks practicing, running across the stadium to warm up. Rhys approached the team from the side-lines, waving shyly at them as Axton jogged up to him and asked if he’d be okay with waiting on the bleachers while they trained.

Rhys made his way up the stands before sliding into a row about halfway up, a good distance away from the team’s training. He stretched his legs casually across two seats, reclining back on one of the arm rests as he settled and watched as the team ran around, tapping his phone against the side of his leg as he waited.

As Rhys brought his headphones from out of his bag and connected them to his phone, playing his music quietly on shuffle, he idly wished that Axton had asked him to go somewhere on a date outside, like the park or a café, since the sun was out and the sky was a beautiful, clear blue today. The brunette didn’t feel much like going into a dark movie theatre and being cramped between strangers for a couple of hours when the weather outside was so pleasant, but Rhys was too polite to complain. Instead, he simply revelled in the time that he had to sit in the outdoor stadium, sipping lazily on his drink as he watched the athletes below him.

Like always, Rhys allowed his mind to wander as he listened to his music soundlessly, scanning his eyes over the football team until he found Axton. Rhys’ thoughts swirled for a while until he started thinking about Jack, and the similarities and differences he and Axton shared.

Sure, Jack and Axton were both very broad and masculine; there wasn’t anything dorky or puny about either of the two men – and they didn’t look or act like Rhys at _all_ , save for the fact that Rhys was tall like them. Rhys wondered what it was for a second that drew him to Jack more than Axton, but then the young man remembered the way Jack’s eyes _sparked_ when he looked at him, and the way Jack made his heart _flutter_. Rhys couldn’t deny that Axton was attractive – hell, Axton would definitely fall under what Rhys had formerly considered to be his ‘type’ – but the jock hadn’t so much had made him _laugh_ since they first met at the party.

Rhys figured that it was Jack’s confidence that set him apart from everyone else that the young man knew. Rhys couldn’t deny that the way someone as _important_ as Jack taking time out of his day to make him smile made the butterflies in Rhys’ stomach tingle like _crazy_. Deep down, Rhys knew that he wished he was going on a date with _Jack_.

Despite his wishes, Rhys decided not to hold it against Axton that he _wasn’t_ Jack, because that wasn’t Axton’s fault. As the jock made his way up the stairs of the bleachers, smiling at Rhys as he did so motioning for him to take his headphones out, Rhys smiled back as sincerely as he could muster.

“Hey, uh, I’m all done.” Axton said, rolling his shoulder and stretching as he reached Rhys’ position near the top of the stands.

“Oh, cool,” Rhys spoke as he paused his music and put his phone back in his pocket, “we going?”

Axton smiled again before to offering Rhys a hand, which Rhys accepted as he flung his bag over his shoulder and stood up, making his way back down the steps next to Axton and away from the stadium. Much to Rhys’ happiness, Axton was very polite as the two of them walked to his car; he asked Rhys how his day had been, and Rhys had taken the time to complain about how much homework he’d been set, filling up the quietness of the otherwise silent parking lot with meaningless, chaste chatter.

“You’re looking cute again, today, by the way. I mean, you look cute every day, but I, I think you look good. You, uh… you’re the only person I know who can rock this school’s lame dress-code.” Axton said as he started up his car, and Rhys scratched the back of his neck coyly.

The rest of the ride to the movies went along a lot like that; Rhys spoke very little as he shyly accepted the tame flattery that Axton sent him, but a part of Rhys silently hoped that Axton would stop being so _friendly_ and crack a bad joke or compliment his ass or _something_.

Axton’s meekness continued as the two of them got to the movies and bought their tickets; he acted gentlemanly, buying Rhys a drink and opening doors for him – which Rhys _definitely_ wasn’t complaining about, but there was a dull ache in the back of Rhys’ mind that screamed _boredom_ as they sat down in the middle of the theatre and watched the movie in silence, sharing a large bag of popcorn and apologising to each other when they reached for some at the same time – but Rhys felt no spark of _danger_ or _fun_.

 _Like I felt with Jack_ , Rhys’ mind told him, but Rhys pushed the thought down.

…

About an hour into the film, Rhys decided that whatever it was he was watching didn’t chalk up to the cult classics he had in his DVD stash at home, and he also decided that the cinema was a _terrible_ choice for a first date. It wasn’t as if it was the _worst_ date Rhys had ever been on, but Rhys figured that, despite the cliché, first dates were definitely for getting to know each other in an open, sociable setting.

Although Rhys hated to be rude, he couldn’t help but jump at the opportunity to when his phone started to buzz, taking it out of his pocket and setting it to the screen to its lowest brightness, rolling his eyes as a notification for the _SOMEONE FETCH THE ICE BECAUSE WE’VE GOT OURSELVES A BURN chat. Rhys scrolled to the top of today’s conversation, reading what he’d missed while he wasn’t looking at his phone._

_> Fiona: Anyone wanna take bets on how well Rhys’ date is going? I’ll put $5 on ‘meh’._

_> Sasha: Nah, I bet the football guy is really good at dating. Rhys is probably getting swept off his feet or something romantic like that._

_> Fiona: You jealous or something, Sash?_

_> Sasha: I’m not even! I think they’re a really cute couple. Like, the nerd-jock aesthetic is THE BEST aesthetic._

_> August: You think every couple’s a cute couple._

_> Sasha: But they’re cute! RHYS! CHECK YOUR PHONE! ASK HIM TO BE YOUR BOYF!_

_> Fiona: Just gonna go ahead and say it, I don’t think Rhys is that into him._

_> Vaughn: Yeah, I get that vibe as well…_

_> Sasha: Stop blowing holes in my ship!_

_> Vaughn: I bet $10 they don’t get together by the end of the date. _

_> Sasha: STOP IT!!_

_> Fiona: Come on Sash, you gotta admit that whenever Rhys is properly crushing on someone he goes all pining and dramatic, but today, Rhys doesn’t even wanna talk about it. REAL SUSPICIOUS, RHYS._

_> Vaughn: Have you noticed the way he’s been looking at his phone recently?_

_> Fiona: YES! What’s up with that?_

_> August: You guys know he can see this, right?_

Rhys grimaced, looking over the messages as they were being sent, and he couldn’t deny that Fiona was telling the truth; he normally _was_ very lovey-dovey when he’s asked out on dates, but he supposed that it boiled down to Rhys wishing that he was going on a date with _another person_ – which was a good enough excuse to not be ‘pining’ – as Fiona put it.

Rhys didn’t even bother to type out a reply – he wasn’t in the right mind-set to deal with his friends’ antics. Instead, Rhys decided to shift whatever was left of his attention span back onto the movie as he leaned his face on his hand with his elbow on the armrest, puffing out a sigh exasperatedly.

…

Axton drove Rhys home courteously, and Rhys’ patience was wearing thin with how bored he was of the austerity of the date, and, once again, Rhys’ mood was sour, but he remained polite for the sake of appearing like a good person, allowing Axton to hold his hand before he got out of the car and told him to have a nice evening before driving away.

It was strange how a single text from Jack could change Rhys’ mood so drastically.

_> Jack: Hey, princess, you wanna help me with a big problem I’ve got myself into?_

Rhys was already stuck to his phone as he walked through the front door of his house, kicking off his shoes as he stared at the screen and said hello to his parents, walking up the stairs and into his bedroom.

_> What kind of problem?_

_> Jack: The kind of problem you were going to help me with on Saturday before your friend so rudely interrupted us._

Rhys’ mind snapped into place as he picked up on the heavy ambiguity that laced Jack’s words, and for the first time that evening, a blush developed over Rhys’ face.

_> Jack: Can I call you, Rhysie? Do you wanna help me with my problem?_

Rhys moved to shut his bedroom door in an instant, nearly slamming it before he sent a reply.

_> I really wanna help you with your problem, Jack._


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL, THIS TOOK FOREVER.

The following weekdays passed by Rhys in a routine blur. After his date with Axton, Rhys had done his best to avoid speaking with the jock out of sheer awkwardness – whenever Axton walked up to Rhys’ and his friends’ table at lunchtime, Rhys would quickly announce that he needed to speak to a teacher about some homework, or go and work on a _very important_ , _very over-due_ project that didn’t really exist. And this was for the simple fact that Rhys couldn’t _stand_ the thought of Axton actually _asking him out_.

Rhys didn’t know how he’d justify telling the jock no.

How on earth was he supposed to let Axton down? _“Oh, I met someone’s thirty year-old father at the party last Saturday and we made out on his office chair. I’ve been in love with him ever since. Sorry!”_

Yeah, not likely.

Something about Jack made Rhys feel like he should be _exclusively_ talking to him and nobody else. Of course, Rhys was still texting Jack like _crazy_. The two of them spoke nearly every minute of every day, and the way Jack called Rhys every morning with a groggy voice as he drank his coffee and drove to work made Rhys’ heart _melt_. The way Jack talked him to sleep at night, or the little jokes he told, or the way he complained about how boring meetings were and how incompetent his employees could be made Rhys feel special and _wanted_ – like Jack wouldn’t rather be doing anything else other than talking to Rhys.

And then there was the incident on Tuesday night where Jack had asked Rhys to ring him up and help him out with a certain _problem_ , which Rhys was more than willing to help with. Obviously, Rhys had never had _phone sex_ – was that the right term? He didn’t know – with anyone before, and their conversation was filled with _‘if you were there’_ s and _‘oh shit, Jack, we have to be more quiet, I think someone’s outside by bedroom door’s_ , but Rhys certainly didn’t want to put the phone down any time soon afterwards.

That event had sent Rhys spiralling into a soppy mess of loved-up romanticism about Jack – he dozed off in daydreams about the older man and sighed longingly to himself, which, naturally, arose some _massive_ suspicions from his group of friends.

Like any good friends would, by Thursday evening, a new group chat titled _WHAT THE FUCK’S WRONG WITH RHYS_ was created – which, of course, Rhys wasn’t added to. Over the course of the day, Sasha and Vaughn had concluded that Rhys’ mawkishness was to do with his date with Axton, but after Fiona brought up the brunette’s clear _dislike_ for the jock due to his actions at dinner time, they’d begun to think that maybe Rhys was into someone _else_.

By the time Friday afternoon passed by, Fiona decided to address the groups’ worries.

“What’s so wrong with the jock guy, anyway?” She asked Rhys as the two of them walked to classes together, ducking past the sea of students who were swarming past them to get to their own classes.

“What?” Rhys spoke quietly to her, acting as nonchalant as possible, brushing off her comment.

“You’re normally all over the muscly type, what gives? You can’t get away quick enough from that guy. I _thought_ you said the date went okay.” Fiona inquired further, recognising that her best friend wasn’t telling her the truth.

“Lay off, the date was _fine_. I’m just not _entirely_ interested.”

“Oh, come on. I’ve not seen you act this awkward around someone since you had that crush on our science professor in freshman year. Plus, you’ve been acting _weird as fuck_ recently. Something’s up, and _everyone_ knows it.”

“Okay, firstly,” Rhys snapped, turning to his friend and pulling her to one side, “do _not_ bring freshman year under _any circumstances_. Secondly, I’m not acting awkward.”

Fiona rolled her eyes and let out a sigh, knowing and condescending. She thought for a while, tapping her foot as she did so, and Rhys had half a mind to hit her over the head and tell her to talk about something else.

It was at that point when Fiona’s eyes lit up, and Rhys _knew_ she’d somehow figured out _something_. Trying desperately to salvage his casualness, Rhys mimicked Fiona as she crossed her arms over her chest.

“What?” He asked again as Fiona’s grin widened.

“I know what’s wrong.” She said, taking a step forward to point an accusatory finger at Rhys. “There’s _someone else_.”

“Huh? No! No, no, no!” Rhys rambled, pushing Fiona’s hand away from him.

“Oh, it’s _true_ , isn’t it, _lover-boy_!” She shouted, and Rhys shushed her angrily, pulling her into the corner of the corridor even further to try and shut her up, students still running past them to get to their classes.

“ _No_ , it’s _not_ true! That’s such a _stupid accusation_ , Fiona!”

“ _Please_ , the signs are all there! The party, the shirt, and you’re always texting _someone_ on your phone!” She shouted at the same volume despite Rhys’ attempts to calm her, listing the so-called signs off with her fingers as she said them.

“That doesn’t mean _anything_!” Rhys argued weakly, his own voice raising in loudness as he did so.

“Sure.” Fiona smirked as she drew out her syllables and strutted away from Rhys, leaving him to catch up and protest even more. “I’m onto you, Rhys.” She said, elbowing him in the side.

…

Rhys was studying for his English class (as, for _some reason_ , the notes he’d been taking for the past two weeks were nothing but doodles of hearts with arrows through them), a book and a question paper sprawled out on his bed next to his laptop and a mug of cocoa, when his phone started buzzing from its place on his bedside table.

_> August sent a message to _SOMEONE FETCH THE ICE BECAUSE WE’VE GOT OURSELVES A BURN.__

Rhys knew _exactly_ what message August had sent before he’d even opened it.

_> August: Tomorrow’s party, hosted by the Red Light downtown. Someone struck a deal, and the owner’s serving alcohol, so we gotta bring cash. Everyone in? _

_> Sasha: YAAAAAS! You driving?_

_> August: Not like anyone else can be bothered to get their licences ;p_

_> Fiona: Eh, why learn to drive when we’ve got the best chauffer in town?_

_> August: Aw, Fiona, I’m touched._

_> August: That was sarcasm, by the way._

_Laughing to himself at his friends’ antics, Rhys closed his study books and his laptop to sit cross-legged on his bed as he typed out his reply to the chat and set his attention on his phone._

_> Rhys: I’m gonna get my licence soon! …Hopefully._

_> Sasha: Oh, yeah, Rhys, because you’re SO good at driving ;)_

_> Rhys: I’m… improving._

_> Vaughn: I thought you told me you stalled the car twelve times before you left your street the other day?_

_> Rhys: THAT WAS TOLD TO YOU IN CONFIDENCE!_

_> Fiona: How can you be THAT bad?!_

_> Sasha: I thought you’d been taking lessons for a year though?_

_> Rhys: I’m just not a natural driver, that’s all!_

_Although he’d never admit it to himself, Rhys was the_ _worst driver ever_ _. His parents paid for weekly driving lessons – but the lessons have resulted in a great deal of_ _nothing_ _– which was probably why Rhys was so thankful to August for driving him everywhere. However, Rhys knew that once the five of them graduated high school, August would probably find a job and wouldn’t have the time to cart his friends around in his beat-up van, so they’d have to find alternative methods of getting around;_ _public transportation_ _and_ _asking his parents for favours_ _wasn’t at the top of Rhys’ ‘ways to get around’ list._

_> August: Although I’d love to sit here and discuss how clearly amazing Rhys is at driving… Fiona, Vaughn, Rhys, you guys up for tomorrow at the Red Light?_

Rhys sighed as he realised he’d been roped into yet another Saturday-night party. Maybe he could think of a half-decent excuse to get him out of going; perhaps he could say that he felt sick, or that he had somewhere else to be?

_> Fiona: Count me in!_

_> Vaughn: Yep!_

Rhys was almost done typing his reply when his phone buzzed with a notification from Jack, which led the brunette to instantly close down the chat messenger and open Jack’s text.

_> Jack: Just got home from work, babe. God, I’m so fuckin’ tired :(_

_> Aw, I wish you didn’t work yourself so hard all the time, Jack, it makes me super sad…_

_> Jack: Please don’t get sad over me, princess!_

_> But I miss you like crazy :( I wish I was there to make you feel better._

_> Jack: My poor baby boy, I miss you too. _

_> My friends are making me go to another Saturday party downtown tomorrow…_

_> I’d rather just stay at home and talk to you  <3_

_> Jack: Have I ever told you how freaking cute you are? Because, seriously, Rhysie, you’re like the cutest thing I’ve ever met._

Rhys could’ve sworn he felt his heart skip a beat, blushing madly as he read Jack’s words. In the space between Rhys controlling his squee-ing, Jack sent another couple of texts.

> _Jack: Anyways, I think Angel’s going to that too. So, I’ll have the house to myself._

_> Jack: Just in case you maybe wanted to come over instead of going to a shitty party, baby boy._

Of course, that didn’t help Rhys’ heart from skipping any less.

_> Um, yes I’ll come over!_

_> Jack: Aw, that’s what I wanted to hear, baby-cakes  <3_

_> I can’t wait to see you again, Jack!_

_> Jack: And I can’t wait to get my hands on you again._

…

Much like everything else in Rhys’ life recently, things hadn’t gone according to plan. The moment that Rhys had messaged the group chat telling everyone that he had a headache and he wouldn’t be going to the party tomorrow, the four of them had vowed to get Rhys there if they had to drag him out of his bedroom, tape him to the van and throw him into the club by force. Despite Rhys’ protests – which had consisted mainly of insisting that he was too sick to go anywhere near alcohol without throwing up the contents of his stomach – his friends were quick to retaliate that the bar served non-alcoholic drinks and that Rhys would probably end up puking anyway because he was such a lightweight (a point which Rhys felt a particular need to defend himself against).

Nevertheless, his friends refused to budge on the matter, and Rhys had come to the upsetting conclusion that there was no way around not going to the party: sneaking out early to go to Jack’s house would probably result in his friends freaking out _majorly_ , but telling his parents that he was sick would result in the two of them not leaving his side throughout the night – which would stop him from seeing Jack too.

By the time Saturday evening rolled over and his friends had messaged him to say that they were on their way in August’s van coming to pick him up, Rhys was pacing about in his bedroom with his phone in his hand, dialling Jack’s number.

When Jack picked up, Rhys was nearly in tears.

“I’m _so_ annoyed, Jack. Like, seriously.” He spoke down the phone quietly as he sat on his bed with a huff, running a hand through his hair feeling utterly disappointed.

“Woah there, baby boy. Is everything okay? Did something bad happen? You don’t sound like yourself.” Jack said, concern running through his tone, trying his best to comfort Rhys.

“My friends,” Rhys sniffed, holding Jack’s voice close to his ear, “said that they’re literally going to get me to the party tonight no matter what. Like, I keep telling them that I don’t want to go but they’re not letting me back out. I mean, I know they’re not doing it to upset me and they want me to come because we’re all, like, best friends, but I _really_ wanna see you. And I can’t make up an excuse because they don’t understand. Jack, I’m so upset.”

“Rhysie, baby,” Jack comforted, “don’t be upset, I can see you some other time, yeah?”

“But you don’t _get it_ , Jack, I don’t wanna go! I wanna go see _you_.” Rhys protested childishly.

Jack shushed the younger man before he could get more upset. “It’s _alright_. Just go and have some fun, okay? I _promise_ we’ll make some other plans. You hear? I _promise_.”

…

Rhys’ friends arrived at the back of his house not shortly after Rhys and Jack’s conversation, and Rhys was still moping around tearfully as he heard Fiona knock at his window. He opened it, and took Fiona’s arm as he did every week, the two of them sliding down the lowered roof of Rhys’ garage and into August’s van. The four friends spent no time in telling Rhys that they were happy to see he didn’t seem too sickly, even though Sasha offered him her shotgun seat to make sure being in the back didn’t make him feel ill.

Rhys declined her offer, but felt a little happier to be reminded of how much his friends cared about him – even if they didn’t act like it all the time.

The ride to the Red Light – the club where the party was being hosted – was exactly the same as the ride to the previous Saturday’s party; they fought over the radio and the temperature of the AC, counting up everyone’s money to estimate how many drinks they could buy themselves and how many drinks they’d have to schmooze from other people’s pockets.

However, Rhys’ content mood didn’t last long as August pulled up into the club’s parking lot, music blaring from past the walls of the modern-looking bar. Rhys was used to the scene laid before him – people he barely recognised from school piling into this week’s party venue, beer bottles littering the floor and the sound of drunken cheer mixing clumsily with the basslines of a trashy dance track.

August had decided that today’s _action plan_ was to split the five friends’ money equally between them, and that they’d all try to get to the bar and order as many drinks as they could carry before meeting up on the dancefloor. That plan, however, flew out of the window as they walked into the bar to see how _huge_ the line to buy drinks was.

“Okay, so,” Vaughn shouted over the music to the rest of the group as they stared at the queue, “what now?”

“Maybe we should split up!” Fiona screamed back, repeating her words to Sasha who replied with an obnoxiously loud “ _what?!_ ”

“Yeah, we could see if they’re serving anywhere else!” August added, standing on his tiptoes to look over the masses of people in the club.

“I’ll take Rhys and we’ll scout the back!” Sasha shouted, and Rhys gave her a thumbs-up in agreement. “You guys can go scout upstairs!” She said to them as the group disbanded, and Sasha and Rhys pushed their way through the crowds, only to find more people in their way.

“This is stupid!” Rhys said as loudly as he could to Sasha, and she nodded her head, shouting something Rhys couldn’t quite make out back.

“I can’t hear you!” Rhys shouted, putting his hand to his ear and leaning in.

“I _said_ , Axton’s behind you!” She replied, pointing behind Rhys and turning the brunette with his shoulders to face the jock, who was waving at Rhys.

“Hey, guys!” Axton shouted as he approached them, drawing an arm around Rhys and Sasha, pulling them in drunkenly. Rhys noted that his breath smelled a _lot_ like alcohol.

Oh, wonderful.

“So, Rhys,” the jock slurred, letting his arm drop from Sasha’s shoulders, “Rhys, Rhys, Rhys.”

Sasha giggled at Axton, hitting Rhys on the shoulder with her hand to show how funny she was finding his drunkenness.

“Rhys, I like you _so much_ , Rhys.” He said, causing Rhys to grimace, and Sasha let out a very loud ‘ _aw_ ’ noise, which Axton smiled at, laughing along with Sasha. “Rhys, you should _so totally_ go to prom with me.”

Sasha squealed, looking at Rhys with wide eyes, who looked back to her in desperation.

“Uh,” Rhys replied, shaking Axton’s arm off of him, falling forwards into Sasha, “I have to go.” The brunette said quietly, pulling Sasha by the arm away from the jock and past a couple of people in the crowd, cringing at the awkwardness that he’d just been through.

However, Sasha stopped walking after a couple of steps, causing Rhys to turn around and look at her again helplessly, gripping onto her forearm even more tightly. Sasha, however, offered no sympathy for Rhys and shook her head incredulously, pulling Rhys close to her face.

“You, me, talk, _now_.” She spoke darkly, frustration bubbling in her voice to match her expression, taking the lead and pulling Rhys towards the corner of the room where the bathrooms were. Sasha angrily flung the door to the toilets open, throwing Rhys into the surprisingly empty-ish room, tapping her foot on the tiled flooring.

“Well?”

Rhys looked at her suspiciously. “Well, what?” He asked.

“Well, why’re you brushing off Axton?”

“Oh, Sasha, not now…” Rhys said defensively, making his way towards the door. Sasha, however, had other plans, and ran quickly in front of Rhys to block him from reaching for the handle.

“You’re not leaving this room until you tell me!” She insisted, and Rhys sighed at her childishness, trying to reach around her for the door to no avail.

“Don’t be a baby, Sasha, move out of the way.”

“Maybe if you tell me what the fuck’s running through your mind every time you reject the captain of the freaking football team.”

Rhys pulled a face of exasperation at Sasha, which she replied to silently by scowling at Rhys. The two friends stayed there, staring at each other, before Sasha rolled her eyes and broke the silence.

“Fiona’s right.” Sasha spoke, sounding almost defeated. “There _is_ someone else.”

“Oh my god, please,” Rhys threw his hands in the air in frustration, “are the pair of you ever going to _stop_ interfering?”

“Nope.” Sasha leaned against the door stubbornly, brows furrowed, with no trace of a joke in her tone. “You’ve gotta stop leading that poor boy on, especially if you like someone else.”

“Sasha!” Rhys raised his voice, angry that his friend would accuse him so readily. “How on _earth_ am I leading him on?”

“Well, you went on a date with him, for starters. And you tell us all you had a good time, but the _second_ he comes up to you, you _run away_. It’s not _fair_ , Rhys.”

“What am I supposed to do, huh? I’m not a _mean_ person, Sasha!”

“You’re acting like one.” Sasha said slowly, shaking her head before looking up at Rhys. “How come you won’t tell _any of us_ what happened last Saturday?”

“Jesus, Sash, not this again. For the last time, _nothing happened_.”

“I _don’t believe you_.” Sasha said quietly, kicking off the door to square up to Rhys, who was more enthralled in his argument to care that Sasha had moved from her spot blocking his exit.

“Well,” Rhys said sarcastically, “that’s your problem!”

“Why don’t you trust us?!” Sasha shouted, taking another step closer to Rhys and raising her voice higher.

“Because you’re making it _really fucking hard_ to trust you! You really think I want to tell you guys _anything_?! You don’t take a single thing I say seriously! I didn’t even want to come here tonight, but you all dragged me anyway!”

Sasha was stopped in her tracks as she looked at Rhys, whose eyes were welling up with tears. She raised her eyebrows, anger simmering back down as she contemplated Rhys’ words.

“Rhys, it’s just because-” Sasha started, putting her hands on Rhys’ shoulders. Rhys, however, pushed her hands away and sneered.

“Whatever.” Rhys said, walking past her, opening the door to the bathroom and walking out, not looking back at Sasha as he did so, absolutely _furious_ with her. Rhys had every intention of getting the _fuck away_ from the party and getting to _Jack_. Surely, Jack would give Rhys a ride back to his house if Rhys asked nicely enough, wouldn’t he? And then, Rhys would get the Saturday that he _wanted_ , and he could forget _all about_ how shitty everyone was.

As Rhys stormed through the sea of drunk teenagers, he pictured a much lovelier image in his mind; Jack drying his tears as they watched a movie, cuddled up on Jack’s couch with Jack’s big arms around him, cheering him up with stupid jokes and bad pick-up lines for the rest of the night.

Well, that was the plan. Fate, however, seemed to have it out for Rhys.

As the brunette made his way across the large expanse of the dancefloor to the door to the club, holding his phone tightly, ready to call Jack once he got out of the club where Jack would be able to hear him, the last thing Rhys expected to see unfolded in front of him.

Axton was stood on a table in the centre of the room, surrounded by the rest of the football team who were shushing the occupants of the Red Light. Except for the roar of the music, the club fell silent as Axton signalled for everyone to be quiet.

“Okay, bitches, settle down!” Axton slurred, and the room drunkenly laughed along with him. “So, basically,” the jock said, shifting around from his place atop the table as he tried to find his balance, “last Saturday, I met the prettiest person _ever_.”

The room awed, and Rhys felt his heart sink.

“But, like, I wanna tell you my _feelings_ ,” he said, throwing a hand to his chest, “for this person, okay?”

The crowd cheered, and Rhys took a step back, looking for the door frantically and pushing past the intoxicated rabble who were blocking his exit route. Even so, Axton continued.

“Rhys, _baby_!” the jock announced, and Rhys felt like he was drowning as a couple of eyes fell on him as the room awed again. Out of the corner of his vision, Rhys saw Fiona, August and Vaughn looking at him from their place in the crowd, following him.

“ _Will you go out with me?_ ” Axton shouted, and the room burst into hysterical applause and celebration, giving Rhys enough time to duck his way out of the club undetected by everyone but his three other friends. The trio called out to him as he walked out of the door, slamming it shut behind him to halt how quickly they’d catch up to him. Tears ran down his cheeks in embarrassment and anger, his head splitting under the ache of all of the _music_ and the _screaming_.

The brunette’s mind was scattered – too full and too empty all at the same time – and the only thing his brain could manage to think of was how desperately he wanted _Jack_ ; and how _none of this_ would’ve happened if he’d just _gone to him in the first place_.

Rhys’ breathing was erratic and sharp as he heard the blood pulse around his ears, ringing with a sharp panic of desperation. He was running away from the club as he reached for his phone, sobbing as his emotions got the better of him, his eyes gluing to the bright light of its screen in contrast to the dimness of the unforgiving night sky. Rain fell on Rhys in an unwelcoming cold, washing over him and mixing with the tears that fell from his messy eyes, making him feel even _sicker_. Everything was rushed, desperate and helpless as Rhys ran away from Fiona’s shout – the rain pouring around his head and his own audible heart beat made it impossible to hear what she said, but he tried to escape her anyway, sprinting onto the road across from the club.

In the haze of his tears, Rhys didn’t see the pair of headlights that sped towards him, unlocking his phone and dialling Jack’s number, sobbing the older man’s name before he even picked up.

Rhys ignored Fiona’s scream at him as she made her way to the edge of the road, calling for him frantically as the metal of the speeding car hit Rhys’ body as the tyres tried in vain to screech to a halt in the rain.

Rhys was thrown onto the asphalt below, his head crashing into the tarmac as his phone shattered on the ground, the flickering remains of an unreceived phone call falling gracelessly beside his body.

Everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...do y'all still love me...? I'm SORRY!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!! o((*^▽^*))o hi guys  <3 mad props to PitchJack for putting up with me all day while I wrote this!!
> 
> OKAY SO, I TOTALLY WASN'T PLANNING FOR THIS TO BE THE LAST CHAPTER Σ(‘◉⌓◉’) but if I'm being completely honest, my ideas rounded off while I was writing this and I'm pretty happy for this to be an end point!!
> 
> however, I HAVE A QUESTION! would you guys be interested in me doing a sequel to this at some point?
> 
> EITHER WAY I HOPE YOU ENJOY AND I ABSOLUTELY LOVE EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU <3

Crying, shouting, gurgled and distressed nonsense; a dialled number for help answered by an automated voice, replaced with ambulance sirens and the irritating, unrelenting beep of heartrate monitors. A clap of thunder made its way through the dark clouds and rain of the night sky, and suddenly the ambulance was there, racing down the cobbled, blood-stained asphalt.

In a blur of cognizance and nothingness, Rhys barely recognised the familiar gesture of a hand reaching out for his. Fiona whispered something unintelligible; her lips were too blurry to make out and the sounds were too severe to focus, but she sounded pained – as if she was asking Rhys to do something – “ _stay with me_ ”, it could’ve been. “ _Don’t go_.”

When Rhys opened his eyes, he felt the intensity of a thousand bright bulbs shining down onto him, filtered directly into his left eye – his right one was covered in something soft yet sticky and uncomfortable, and the mixed smell of blood and antiseptic sanitizer yielded an unwelcoming and cold air to wash over the young man. All of his senses had been turned on violently as he took his first conscious breath in what felt like an eternity; his lungs pleaded for oxygen, his ears rung with a high-pitched squeal and his eye begged for forgiveness in the light of the pristine-white room. Rhys was incredibly relieved to feel that he could move around his legs without a lot of discomfort, but the rest of his body felt as if it’d been crushed.

Rhys found that breathing too heavily was difficult – his chest and diaphragm hurt insanely, so he’d probably landed himself with a few broken ribs in addition to all of the other scrapes, bruises and breakages on his body.

Things weren’t _supposed_ to pan out like this.

Rhys closed his eyes and exhaled loudly over the sound of the various monitors in the room with him. After a couple of moments of lying there – breathing steadily, clearing his head – Rhys managed to rationalise his thoughts into putting together what’d happened.

Trying to open his eyes once again revealed to Rhys that there was, indeed, something over his right eye – the right side of his face was _stinging_ , and Rhys could feel the tears well up in his working eye as the thought that he’d probably landed onto the street facing that way crept over his mind. Lifting up his hand – the one that Rhys could actually feel – the brunette managed to work out that, as he’d thought previously, there were bandages and gauze wrapped around the right side of his head, but they’d been drenched with something.

When Rhys took his hand away, he didn’t expect to see the red-coloured stain on his fingertips, soaking around the contours of his hands and trickling downwards back onto the bandages.

Oh, so the wet substance was his blood. _Great_.

Rhys grimaced, rubbing his working hand over his head to ascertain the damage for himself as he tried to lift himself up on the hospital bed he’d been laying on. As he expected, sitting up caused his body to scream in agony – his muscles worn, bloody and battered – so Rhys decided that staying still would be his best option.

After recovering from his admittedly bad decision to try and move, Rhys shifted his focus onto his left arm, tilting his head slightly in the process of reaching over his body. The sight he was met with wasn’t expected – a bloody, mangled mess of the remnants of his left arm tilted upwards, bruises littering him all the way up to his shoulder. Rhys choked back the tears in the emptiness of his hospital room, looking away from the messy, half-bandaged gore beside him.

A few minutes passed as Rhys sat in the room in silence, quietly and sadly contemplating how _stupid_ he felt. If he’d only listened to what Fiona was shouting about as he made his way onto the road, if he’d only accepted Sasha’s apology and stayed with her at the party, or if he’d only brushed off Axton’s drunken announcement as a meaningless, intoxicated slur, _none of this would’ve happened_.

If he’d only just _gone to Jack_.

Of course, the moment that Rhys had allowed a tear to fall was the moment that his friends came rushing through the door; all completely drenched to the bone. Rhys looked at them as they ran inside. The group – led by Fiona, whose jacket sleeves were covered in Rhys’ blood – flocked around Rhys’ bed, tears in their eyes and covered in rainwater.

“God, you’re okay.” Fiona murmured out, reaching over the bed to cup the side of Rhys’ face that wasn’t bandaged.

Rhys shook his head as he tried to open his eye to look at Fiona properly even though he hadn’t adjusted to the lights, and he managed to breathe out a “ _what happened_ ”, before she cut him off, shushing him and allowing August to pull her up a chair so she could sit beside him.

“Well,” Fiona started, on the verge of tears but smiling, “I saw you run out of the party, and, _God_ , you were running so fast. And you... you ran out onto the road and you…”

Fiona took a moment to wipe her eyes.

This was probably the most upset Rhys had ever seen her – it was probably the most upset he’d ever seen _any_ of his friends – but if his own analysis was anything to go by, Rhys was in bad shape. He didn’t blame any of them for being as traumatised as he was.

“And the next thing I knew I was on the floor with you. They had to patch up my knees I flung myself into the road so hard.” Fiona laughed, broken, as she motioned down to the red tears in her jeans, accompanied by thick, professional-grade compresses on each of her legs.

“You should’ve seen her. It was like something out of a superhero movie.” August added, laughing brokenly too, and Rhys could pick up on how hard they were trying to express how relieved and upset they were at the same time. “She had her arms around you, like, a second after you hit the ground.”

“You’re a regular superwoman, huh, Fi?” Sasha spoke from the other side of the bed, perched down in her own chair next to Vaughn.

Fiona let out another laugh, unable to take her eyes away from Rhys, who smiled back at her weakly.

“And… and then the driver called for an ambulance.” Fiona went on to say after a brief pause, her words slow, as if she was trying to recall everything in great detail but her mouth wouldn’t speak the words she wanted to say. “They let me ride in the back with you. Then these idiots all came in the van straight from the party. Apparently August tried to park in the ambulance bay.”

The group shared another laugh as Fiona shuffled in her seat, rubbing the bandages on her knees carefully, and a settled silence washed over the five teenagers. Rhys watched as Sasha tied her hair up with the scrunchy she kept on her wrist, wiping her wet face with the sleeve of her hoodie. August leant against the side of Rhys’ bedframe tiredly as Vaughn rubbed the lenses of his glasses, and Rhys began to realise just how exhausted his friends must be.

“You should all go home.” Rhys managed to say, clearing his dry throat and trying his best to muster up enough energy to speak.

“What? No, no, we’re gonna stay here, with you.” Fiona nearly shouted as she latched onto Rhys’ forearm, and Sasha scraped the legs of her chair against the linoleum flooring of the room as she stood up.

“We’re not leaving you on your own!” Sasha protested.

“But… your parents must be worried sick...” Rhys argued, as thoughts of his own parents discovering what a mess he’d made of himself came into mind.

“Stop worrying about other people, for once in your life!” Fiona fretted. “Just get some rest, okay? We’ll…” the brown-haired girl trailed off, looking at the rest of the group for encouragement, “we’ll sort everything out.”

…

The hours that passed by turned into days – and, albeit slowly – Rhys started to feel like himself again. The lights and sounds became much more bearable over the course of Rhys’ stay in the hospital and, although Rhys was counting down the days when he could finally return home and sleep in his own bed, Rhys definitely wouldn’t describe his room as the hell he’d thought it was when he’d first woken up. Thankfully, the nurses that regularly visited Rhys’ room were amazingly nice and helpful, and he’d been able to get complete control over his working arm.

The nurses had regarded Rhys as a miracle for being able to walk on the second day of his stay, but Rhys simply chalked it up to the fact that his upper body took a lot more of the damage than his lower half. Nonetheless, the leaps and bounds in his recovery that Rhys was taking led the hospital to agree to let Rhys go home on Friday, provided that he promised one of the more motherly nurses that he’d only go into school once he felt up to it.

Despite that little victory, Rhys’ right arm was nothing short of unusable. In addition to his left eye – which the doctors had told him had been hit with an unfortunately well-aimed piece of shrapnel from the chunk of road Rhys had managed to dent – Rhys found it hard to cope with the use of only one of his hands.

Although there was a glimmer of hope for Rhys to regain the use of two arms, the hospital had advised that reconstructive surgery should only be considered once Rhys was fully recovered. Since his friends had decided to make it their personal mission to visit Rhys every day after school, when Rhys told the four of them about how he could potentially have his arm rebuilt out of metal, the group had affectionately renamed Rhys right-arm ‘robot hand’. By the third night of Rhys’ stay at the hospital, he’d happily concluded that everything could’ve been a lot _worse_ for him.

And yet, even so, there were certain points during the day where Rhys couldn’t bring himself to be happy. Amidst the growing piles of flowers, cards and chocolates his friends had been delighted to deliver to him from nearly every student and teacher at Pandora Academy, there was something niggling away at Rhys’ brain that he couldn’t quite shake off.

_Jack_.

Much to Rhys’ distress, he’d discovered that his phone was completely and utterly _broken_. During one of his friends’ visits, Rhys had managed to casually drop the hint that he’d like for them to bring his phone to him. Of course, Rhys was expecting _anything_ else than for Vaughn to reach into his school bag and bring out a crudely wrapped package of kitchen roll, which he’d carried to Rhys’ bedside like a tiny casket, and opened the package to reveal a crumbled mess which may or may not have resembled Rhys’ beloved phone.

“I picked it up off the roadside.” Vaughn had explained solemnly, looking down at the shattered remains in his hands. “We didn’t want to give it to you because we knew how much you loved it.”

“We’ll always remember you, phone.” August said, shaking his head as he looked downwards, his hands clasped together at the front of his body.

“He was so young!” Sasha cried as she flung herself at August, crying over-dramatically into his shoulder as Fiona stood over Rhys and wiped away a fake tear.

“You’ve got to be strong, Rhys.” Fiona spoke, shaking her voice theatrically before burying her head in her hands and descending into her own fake-tears.

The hilarity of the mini-funeral that his friends seemed to be holding for the phone made Rhys want to laugh – as he was sure they intended him to do – but as the shocking realisation that Vaughn was holding his only means of communication with Jack dawned on him, Rhys wanted to burst into tears too.

…

Jack took his fork and stabbed at the plate beneath him without even looking downwards. There was a clink of metal against pot, but Jack still didn’t look down, opting instead to try and stab blindly at his food again, earning another high-pitched clink. By the third time that Jack had managed to create the most ear-splitting and annoying noise that Angel had ever heard in her life, she decided to look up from her phone and glare at him as best she could.

However, Jack simply sat there, with his head resting against the palm of his hand while the other continued to scrape the silver fork against the plate, his eyes staring into thin-air.

“Dad.” Angel tried, locking her phone and placing it beside her own plate of food to try and catch Jack’s attention. Seemingly, her words didn’t even make it halfway across the table as Jack continued to idly daydream and stab aimlessly.

“Dad.” The teenager tried again, a little louder this time, and much to her relief, Jack was shaken from his thoughts. He looked at her, blankly, in what she could only describe as a mixture of uncharacteristic boredom and sadness. It struck Angel as rather odd; usually, when her dad came home from work he’d bombard her with lively, talkative questions about how her day had been, and tell her stories about his employees’ latest big mistake.

At the very least, Angel wasn’t used to eating her dinner in silence. Much to her irritation, Jack’s attention had drifted away from being in the realms of normal-Jack, so Angel decided to try and steer the non-existent conversation into something more regular.

“So, Gaige told me that she’s dyeing her hair red soon.” Angel tried, speaking as loudly as she could without shouting. “She wants me to go to the hairdressers with her. She thinks that I’d look nice if I got a colour on my ends. Purple, I’m thinking?”

“That’s cool.” Jack breathed out, exasperatedly, and for the thousandth time in her life, Angel felt as if she was the adult of the household.

“Anything happen with you today?” She tried again, putting her elbows on the table so she could see if Jack’s attitude shifted at all.

“Nope.” Jack replied, drawing out the letters of the word, popping the ‘p’ as he ended his reply.

Angel sat with her back to the chair in a huff, drawing her elbows across her chest in defeat as Jack began to stab at his plate absentmindedly again. Angel had to admit it – if someone had offered her the chance for her dad to be a little less talkative every now and again, she’d take it, but this was just plain _weird_. He’d been this way _all week_.

“Everything good? You’re not exactly acting like yourself there, Dad.”

“Mm.” Jack murmured back, like a disinterested child.

Then again, Angel determined that this week had been weird in general. As her thoughts sparked the memory of what’d happened on Saturday, Angel decided to share the story.

“So, you know, something pretty bad happened on Saturday night.” Angel started, happy to see that Jack’s eyes had drifted over to meet hers, seemingly interested in what she had to say. “There’s this boy in my year who like, ran out of the party crying got _hit by a car_. Everybody’s super worried about him, because he’s in hospital and stuff. What did Maya say his name was? Rhys?”

The fork dropping onto the plate as Jack’s hand went lax made yet another high-pitched clink, but Angel carried on, too caught up in her words to realise the way Jack looked at his phone in horror.

“Everyone’s been sending him cards and flowers and shit. Like, I signed a couple of the big cards they sent, but I feel like I should get him something-”

“Angel.” Jack says as he stands up from his seat, pocketing his phone. “There’s something really important I have to do at work.”

Angel gave Jack an incredulous look, watching as he walked past her to collect his keys and jacket from the hallway. The sound of the front door opening made Angel get out of her seat, motioning in disbelief at her dad as he all but ran to his car.

“And I guess I’ll just do the dishes, huh?” Angel shouted as she reached the door, earning a pseudo-apologetic look from Jack.

“You’ll be alright on your own, won’t you?” He asked, unlocking his car, dodging Angel’s question entirely.

“Weirdo!” Angel threw her arms in the air as her personal goodbye, shutting the door behind her. Jack, on the other hand, nearly threw himself into the car, turning the key into the ignition and speeding off, barely even remembering the directions to the hospital in a mad rush. By the time Jack had made it into the hospital’s carpark, his mind was scattered – he had no idea what he was doing there, or why he _cared_ so much about Rhys, or why he’d left _so many phone calls and messages_ on the boy’s phone by this point, but all he could think about was making sure that the kid was alright.

As Jack made it into the building and the smell of sanitary chemicals filled the air, Jack allowed himself a couple of seconds to slow his breathing down and ask himself what the _hell_ he was doing there. Sure, Rhys was funny, and he was _really freaking cute_ – and yeah, he was one of the only things that made work _sufferable_ – but perhaps Jack was taking the whole thing a little too far. Surely, at a time like this, Rhys wouldn’t even _want_ to see Jack – he’d want to be around the people who cared about him.

Then again, _Jack did definitely care about him_.

With that in mind, Jack made his way up to the front desk of the reception area. Luckily for him, the lady who was working at the counter currently looked like she was bored out of her mind – which, for Jack, was _perfect_.

“Hey, beautiful. Long shift?” Jack said, leaning over the desk as much as he could, smiling attractively. Hopefully it wouldn’t take too long to get Rhys’ room number out of her.

…

Rhys shifted uncomfortably in his bed as he rolled around the sheets, trying his best to lay on his side without making himself even more sore, especially with the huge sling they’d wrapped Rhys’ other arm in, strapping the limb to his chest. Over the past couple of days of laying on the thin hospital bed, Rhys had come to _loathe_ the way it creaked like cheap plastic whenever he shifted and how, no matter how many spare pillows he asked for, he never seemed to be propped up enough. In addition to his discomfort, Rhys was – without a doubt – bored out of his skull. Naturally, being able to do literally nothing all day and not having access to his dearly departed phone left Rhys unhappy and irritated, but thankfully, his friends would probably be arriving soon to check up on him, and they always cheered Rhys up; besides, Sasha always let him go on all her social media whenever she dropped by, so it wasn’t exactly as if he hadn’t caught up on the school’s gossip, which was at least one positive thing.

Nevertheless, waiting had always been one of Rhys’ least favourite things; and recovery was a slow, painful process that required a lot of doing nothing but resting and taking medicine, as well as the occasional gross hospital meal. Of course, Rhys knew he wasn’t alone in his hatred of waiting, but he’d always at least been able to keep himself occupied in other situations. Over the course of is stay at the hospital, Rhys had taken to learning how to read a book and turn the pages one-handedly. Once he’d mastered that, Rhys took it upon himself to try and make an origami dove.

To say that his intellect wasn’t being challenged was an understatement.

Sighing as he drew his legs upwards before dropping them back down again out of boredom, Rhys decided that he’d open a window to try and let some fresh air into his small room. He stood by the windowsill for a minute or so, breathing in and out slowly as he let the cool evening air flow freely into the stuffy space, until there was a sharp, unfamiliar knock at his door.

“Come in!” Rhys replied happily from his space next to the window, not bothering to turn around. The door clicked near-silently open, and Rhys heard whoever it was take a step forward before the door was closed again.

“Rhysie?”

Rhys’ eyes shot open as he turned around, almost ready to see nobody at the other side of the room, as if he’d just imagined the deep voice he’d grown so accustomed to. Rhys felt the need to rub his eye or pinch himself as he saw Jack, stood in the now-closed doorway looking just as shocked as Rhys did, but with that charming, signature smile accompanying his features. The brunette had nearly forgotten just how striking Jack was, their last meeting just a fumbled mess of alcohol-infused kisses under dim, shadowed lighting.

“Damn, am I glad to see you, baby boy.” Jack said as he took a couple of steps forward, leaving Rhys to follow suit and close the space between them. The older of the two reached out, pulling Rhys by the wrist even closer so that he was leaning his weight on Jack, his face tucked comfortably into Jack’s neck.

“I’m glad to see you too…” Rhys breathed out against Jack’s skin, lightheaded from the dreaminess he felt, blushing an embarrassing shade of pink. “How’d you get here?”

“Well, I figured something was wrong when you didn’t answer your phone.” Jack explained, bringing a hand up to card through the younger brunette’s hair. “You _always_ answer. I thought you were bored of me or something, baby boy.”

“No, Jack, I wouldn’t…” Rhys pulled himself away to look at Jack in the eye. “I wouldn’t do _that_.”

Jack smiled at Rhys before leading him over to sit down on the hospital bed. Rhys laughed at how gentle Jack was as he wrapped a hand around Rhys’ waist, careful not to run his hand over any painful areas.

“Stop laughin’, I don’t wanna hurt you.” Jack scolded, rubbing his hand over Rhys’ side as if he was checking to see what the damage was. “You gonna tell me what happened?”

“I was just being stupid.” Rhys said as he titled his head to rest on Jack’s shoulder, leaning into the older man again. “I was upset and I ran onto the road.”

“You were upset?” Jack inquired, and Rhys’ heart melted at the genuine concern in the older man’s voice.

“Yeah, I had a shitty time. I guess I was just feeling over-emotional. And…” Rhys paused, not sure whether or not he should continue his sentence. “And I missed you, and stuff.”

“You really were being stupid.” Jack agreed as he continued to hold Rhys, rubbing his hand over the brunette’s side, causing Rhys to yawn. “I guess that makes two of us.”

“Hm?” Rhys asked sleepily, the hospital bed suddenly feeling a lot more comfortable than before.

“I mean, what sort of an idiot drives halfway across town and talks the receptionist into giving up some teenager’s room number?”

“That’s all I am, huh?” Rhys smirked as he nuzzled into the older man’s shoulder, trying his best to be sarcastic through his sleepiness. “Some teenager?”

“Oh, baby boy.” Jack smirked too, lifting Rhys away from him so he could cup the brunette’s chin. “You’re so much more than that.”

Jack pulled Rhys in slowly as their lips connected, and Rhys’ eyes drifted shut as he felt Jack’s lips move in time with his own. The kiss was chaste – tender and as innocent as someone like Jack could muster – but even so, it made Rhys remember just how utterly head over heels he was for this man. It seemed to last an eternity, and days of pining spiralled out of Rhys completely in the form of raw, needy emotion. Rhys grabbed Jack by his jacket, pulling him closer as he whined submissively, and Jack purred his own wordless reply against Rhys’ lips.

The click of the door opening wasn’t enough to tear the two away from each other, and neither was the four pair of eyes that stared blankly forwards. The door, whose handle had fallen from Sasha’s grip, banged ceremoniously against the adjacent wall of the room, and, in an instant, the kiss was broken.

Rhys looked towards the doorway in shock, mouth opened wide.

The case of the missing shirt was solved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, HUUUUUGE thank you for reading, and please be sure to tell me if you'd like to see a sequel!!
> 
> by the way, please feel free to drop a message at http://supermagically.tumblr.com/ <3


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